


Vanilla Twilight with Rainbow Sprinkles

by Merrilly



Category: Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Canon Genderbending, F/F, Genderbending, Lesbian Character, Lesbian Vampires
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-04-27 22:57:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 52,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5068096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merrilly/pseuds/Merrilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A spliced-together lesbian version of "Twilight" and "Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined." 99% of material copied directly from the original books, with a few changes made to make it feel more natural as a small-town lesbian love story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Preface

I’D NEVER GIVEN MUCH THOUGHT TO HOW I WOULD DIE— THOUGH I’D had reason enough in the last few months— but even if I had, I would not have imagined it like this.

I stared without breathing across the long room, into the dark eyes of the hunter, and she looked pleasantly back at me.

Surely it was a good way to die, in the place of someone else, someone I loved. Noble, even. That ought to count for something.

I knew that if I’d never gone to Forks, I wouldn’t be facing death now. But, terrified as I was, I couldn’t bring myself to regret the decision. When life offers you a dream so far beyond any of your expectations, it’s not reasonable to grieve when it comes to an end.

The hunter smiled in a friendly way as she sauntered forward to kill me.


	2. First Sight

MY MOTHER DROVE ME TO THE AIRPORT WITH THE WINDOWS ROLLED down. It was seventy-five degrees in Phoenix, the sky a perfect, cloudless blue. I had on my favorite t-shirt— the Monty Python one with the swallows and the coconut that Mom got me two Christmases ago. It didn’t quite fit anymore, but that didn’t matter. I wouldn’t be needing t-shirts again soon.

In the Olympic Peninsula of northwest Washington State, a small town named Forks exists under a near-constant cover of clouds. It rains on this inconsequential town more than any other place in the United States of America. It was from this town and its gloomy, omnipresent shade that my mother escaped with me when I was only a few months old. It was in this town that I’d been compelled to spend a month every summer until I was fourteen. That was the year I finally put my foot down; these past three summers, my dad, Charlie, vacationed with me in California for two weeks instead.

Yet somehow, I now found myself exiled to Forks for the rest of my high school education. A year and a half. Eighteen months. It felt like a prison sentence. Eighteen months, hard time. When I slammed the car door behind me, it made a sound like the clang of iron bars locking into place.

Okay, just a tad melodramatic there. I have an overactive imagination, as my mom was fond of telling me. And, of course, this was my choice. Self-imposed exile.

Didn’t make it any easier.

I loved Phoenix. I loved the sun and the dry heat and the big, sprawling city. And I loved living with my mom, where I was needed.

“You don’t have to do this,” my mom said to me— the last of a hundred times— just before I got to the TSA post.

My mom says we look so much alike that I could use her for a mirror. It’s not entirely true, though I don’t look much like my dad at all. Her chin is pointy and her lips full, which is not like me, but we do have exactly the same eyes. On her they’re childlike— so wide and pale blue—which makes her look like my sister rather than my mom. We get that all the time and though she pretends not to, she loves it. On me the pale blue is less youthful and more… unresolved.

Staring at those wide, worried eyes so much like my own, I felt panicked. I’d been taking care of my mom for my whole life. I mean, I’m sure there must have been a time, probably when I was still in diapers, that I wasn’t in charge of the bills and paperwork and cooking and general level-headedness, but I couldn’t remember it.

Was leaving my mom to fend for herself really the right thing to do? It had seemed like it was, during the months I’d struggled toward this decision. But it felt all kinds of wrong now.

Of course she had Phil these days, so the bills would probably get paid on time, there would be food in the fridge, gas in the car, and someone to call when she got lost.… She didn’t need me as much anymore.

“I _want_ to go,” I lied. I’d never been a good liar, but I’d been saying this lie so frequently lately that it sounded almost convincing now.

“Tell Charlie I said hi.”

“I will.”                                                                                               

“I’ll see you soon,” she promised. “You can come home whenever you want— I’ll come right back as soon as you need me.”

But I could see the sacrifice in her eyes behind the promise.

“Don’t worry about me,” I urged. “It’ll be great. I love you, Mom.”

She hugged me tightly for a minute, and then I walked through the metal detectors, and she was gone.

It’s a three-hour flight from Phoenix to Seattle, another hour in a small plane up to Port Angeles, and then an hour drive back down to Forks. Flying’s never bothered me; the hour in the car with Charlie, though, I was a little worried about.

Charlie had really been fairly nice about the whole thing. He seemed genuinely pleased that I was coming to live with him for the first time with any degree of permanence. He’d already gotten me registered for high school, and was going to help me get a car.

But it was sure to be awkward with Charlie. Neither of us was what anyone would call verbose, and I didn’t know what there was to say regardless. I knew he was more than a little confused by my decision— like my mother before me, I hadn’t made a secret of my distaste for Forks.

When I landed in Port Angeles, it was raining. I didn’t see it as an omen—just unavoidable. I’d already said my goodbyes to the sun.

Charlie was waiting for me with the cruiser. This I was expecting, too. Charlie is Police Chief Swan to the good people of Forks. My primary motivation behind buying a car, despite the scarcity of my funds, was that I refused to be driven around town in a car with red and blue lights on top. Nothing slows down traffic like a cop.

I stumbled off the plane into Charlie’s awkward, one-armed hug.

“It’s good to see you, Bells,” he said, smiling as he automatically caught and steadied me. We patted each other’s shoulders, embarrassed, and then stepped back. “You haven’t changed much. How’s Renée?”

“Mom’s fine. It’s good to see you, too, Dad.” I wasn’t supposed to call him Charlie to his face.

I only had two big duffel bags. Most of my Arizona clothes were too permeable for the Washington climate. My mom and I had pooled our resources to supplement my winter wardrobe, but it was still scanty. I could handle both of them, but Charlie insisted on taking one.

It threw my balance off a little—not that I was ever really balanced, especially since the growth spurt. My foot caught on the lip of the exit door and the bag swung out and hit the guy trying to get in.

“Oh, sorry.”

The guy wasn’t much older than me, and he was a lot shorter, but he stepped up to my chest with his chin raised high. I could see tattoos on both sides of his neck. A small woman with hair dyed solid black stared menacingly at me from his other side.

_“Sorry?”_ she repeated, like my apology had been offensive somehow.

“Er, yeah?”

And then the woman noticed Charlie, who was in uniform. Charlie didn’t even have to say anything. He just looked at the guy, who backed up a half-step and suddenly seemed a lot younger, and then the girl, whose sticky red lips settled into a pout. Without another word, they ducked around me and headed into the tiny terminal.

Charlie and I both shrugged at the same time. It was funny how we had some of the same mannerisms when we didn’t spend much time together. Maybe it was genetic.

“I found a good car for you, really cheap,” Charlie announced when we were strapped into the cruiser and on our way.

“What kind of car?” I was suspicious of the way he said “good car for _you_ ” as opposed to just “good car.”

“Well, it’s a truck actually, a Chevy.”

“Where did you find it?”

“Do you remember Bonnie Black down at La Push?” La Push is the tiny Indian reservation on the nearby coastline.

“No.”

“She used to go fishing with us during the summer,” Charlie prompted.

That would explain why I didn’t remember her. I do a good job of blocking painful, unnecessary things from my memory.

“She’s in a wheelchair now,” Charlie continued when I didn’t respond, “so she can’t drive anymore, and she offered to sell me her truck cheap.”

“What year is it?” I could see from the change in his expression that this was the question he was hoping I wouldn’t ask.

“Well, Bonnie’s done a lot of work on the engine— it’s only a few years old, really.”

I hoped he didn’t think so little of me as to believe I would give up that easily. “When did she buy it?”

“She bought it in 1984, I think.”

“Did she buy it new?”

“Well, no. I think it was new in the early sixties— or late fifties at the earliest,” he admitted sheepishly.

“Ch— Dad, I don’t really know anything about cars. I wouldn’t be able to fix it if anything went wrong, and I couldn’t afford a mechanic.…”

“Really, Bella, the thing runs great. They don’t build them like that anymore.”

_The thing,_ I thought to myself… it had possibilities— as a nickname, at the very least.

“How cheap is cheap?” After all, that part was the part I couldn’t compromise on.

“Well, honey, I kind of already bought it for you. As a homecoming gift.” Charlie peeked sideways at me with a hopeful expression.

Wow. Free.

“You didn’t need to do that, Dad. I was going to buy myself a car.”

“I don’t mind. I want you to be happy here.” He was looking ahead at the road when he said this. Charlie had never been comfortable with expressing his emotions out loud. I inherited that from him. So I was looking straight ahead as I responded.

“That’s really nice, Dad. Thanks. I really appreciate it.” No need to add that my being happy in Forks was an impossibility. He didn’t need to suffer along with me. And I never looked a free truck in the mouth— or engine.

“Well, now, you’re welcome,” he mumbled, embarrassed by my thanks.

We exchanged a few more comments on the weather, which was wet, and that was pretty much it for conversation. We stared out the windows in silence.

It was beautiful, of course; I couldn’t deny that. Everything was green: the trees, their trunks covered with moss, their branches hanging with a canopy of it, the ground covered with ferns. Even the air filtered down greenly through the leaves.

It was too green— an alien planet.

Eventually we made it to Charlie’s. He still lived in the small, two-bedroom house that he’d bought with my mother in the early days of their marriage. Those were the only kind of days their marriage had— the early ones. There, parked on the street in front of the house that never changed, was my new—well, new to me— truck. It was a faded red color, with big, rounded fenders and a bulbous cab.

To my intense surprise, I loved it. I didn’t know if it would run, but I could see myself in it. Plus, it was one of those solid iron monsters that never gets damaged— the kind you see at the scene of an accident, paint unscratched, surrounded by the pieces of the foreign car it had just destroyed.

“Wow, Dad, I love it! Thanks!” Now my horrific day tomorrow would be just that much less dreadful. I wouldn’t be faced with the choice of either walking two miles in the rain to school or accepting a ride in the Chief’s cruiser.

“I’m glad you like it,” Charlie said gruffly, embarrassed again.

It took only one trip to get all my stuff upstairs. I got the west bedroom that faced out over the front yard. The room was familiar; it had belonged to me since I was born. The wooden floor, the light blue walls, the peaked ceiling, the yellowed lace curtains around the window— these were all a part of my childhood. The only changes Charlie had ever made were switching the crib for a bed and adding a desk as I grew. The desk now held a secondhand computer, with the phone line for the modem stapled along the floor to the nearest phone jack. This was a stipulation from my mother, so that we could stay in touch easily. The rocking chair from my baby days was still in the corner.

There was only one small bathroom at the top of the stairs, which I would have to share with Charlie, but I’d had to share with my mom before, and that was definitely worse. She had a lot more stuff, and she doggedly resisted all my attempts to organize any of it.

One of the best things about Charlie is he doesn’t hover. He left me alone to unpack and get settled, a feat that would have been altogether impossible for my mother. It was nice to be alone, not to have to smile and look pleased; a relief to stare dejectedly out the window at the sheeting rain and let my thoughts get dark.

Forks High School had a frightening total of only three hundred and fifty-seven— now fifty-eight— students; there were more than seven hundred people in my junior class alone back home. All of the kids here had grown up together— their grandparents had been toddlers together. I would be the new girl from the big city, something to stare at and whisper about.

Maybe, if I had been one of the cool kids, I could work this to my advantage. I _should_ be tan, sporty, blond—a volleyball player, or a cheerleader, perhaps—all the things that go with living in the valley of the sun.

But there was no hiding the fact that I was not _that girl_ —not the star athlete, not the class president, not the bad girl on the motorcycle. I didn’t have the necessary hand-eye coordination to play sports without humiliating myself—and harming both myself and anyone else who stood too close. I was the girl who got shoved into lockers until I’d suddenly shot up five inches. The girl who was too quiet and too pale, who didn’t know anything about makeup or parties or boys… or anything else I was supposed to be into.

Unlike the other kids, I didn’t have a ton of free time for hobbies. I had a checkbook to balance, a clogged drain to snake, and a week’s groceries to shop for.

Or I used to.

I didn’t relate well to people my age. Maybe the truth was that I didn’t relate well to people, period. Even my mother, who I was closer to than anyone else on the planet, was never in harmony with me, never on exactly the same page. Sometimes I wondered if I was seeing the same things through my eyes that the rest of the world was seeing through theirs. Maybe what I saw as green was what everyone else saw as red. Maybe I smelled vinegar when they smelled coconut. Maybe there was a glitch in my brain.

But the cause didn’t matter. All that mattered was the effect. And tomorrow would be just the beginning.

I didn’t sleep well that night, even after I finally got my head to shut up. The constant _whoosh_ ing of the rain and wind across the roof wouldn’t fade into the background. I pulled the faded old quilt over my head, and later added the pillow, too. But I couldn’t fall asleep until after midnight, when the rain finally settled into a quieter drizzle.

Thick fog was all I could see out my window in the morning, and I could feel the claustrophobia creeping up on me. You could never see the sky here; it was like that prison cage I’d imagined.

Breakfast with Charlie was a quiet event. He wished me good luck at school. I thanked him, knowing his hope was wasted. Good luck tended to avoid me. Charlie left first, off to the police station that was his wife and family. After he left, I sat at the old square oak table in one of the three unmatching chairs and examined his small kitchen, with its dark paneled walls, bright yellow cabinets, and white linoleum floor. Nothing was changed.

My mother had painted the cabinets eighteen years ago in an attempt to bring some sunshine into the house. Over the small fireplace in the adjoining handkerchief-sized family room was a row of pictures. First a wedding picture of Charlie and my mom in Las Vegas, then one of the three of us in the hospital after I was born, taken by a helpful nurse, followed by the procession of my school pictures up to this year’s. Those were embarrassing to look at—the bad haircuts, the braces years, the acne that had finally cleared up. I would have to see what I could do to get Charlie to put them somewhere else, at least while I was living here.

It was impossible, being in this house, not to realize that Charlie had never gotten over my mom. It made me uncomfortable.

I didn’t want to be too early to school, but I couldn’t stay in the house anymore. I donned my jacket—thick, non-breathing plastic, like a biohazard suit— and headed out into the rain.

It was just drizzling still, not enough to soak me through immediately as I reached for the house key that was always hidden under the eave by the door, and locked up. The sloshing of my new waterproof boots was unnerving. I missed the normal crunch of gravel as I walked. I couldn’t pause and admire my truck again as I wanted; I was in a hurry to get out of the misty wet that swirled around my head and clung to my hair under my hood.

Inside the truck, it was nice and dry. Either Bonnie or Charlie had obviously cleaned it up, but the tan upholstered seats still smelled faintly of tobacco, gasoline, and peppermint. The engine started quickly, to my relief, but loudly, roaring to life and then idling at top volume. Well, a truck this old was bound to have a flaw. The antique radio worked, a plus that I hadn’t expected.

Finding the school wasn’t difficult; like most other things, it was just off the highway. It wasn’t obvious at first that it was a school; only the sign, which declared it to be the Forks High School, clued me in. It looked like a collection of matching houses, built with maroon-colored bricks. There were so many trees and shrubs I couldn’t see its size at first. Where was the feel of the institution? I wondered nostalgically. Where were the chain-link fences, the metal detectors?

I parked in front of the first building, which had a small sign over the door reading FRONT OFFICE. No one else was parked there, so I was sure it was off limits, but I decided I would get directions inside instead of circling around in the rain like an idiot. I stepped unwillingly out of the toasty truck cab and walked down a little stone path lined with dark hedges. I took a deep breath before opening the door.

Inside, it was brightly lit, and warmer than I’d hoped. The office was small; there was a little waiting area with padded folding chairs, orange-flecked commercial carpet, notices and awards cluttering the walls, and a big clock ticking loudly. Plants grew everywhere in large plastic pots, as if there weren’t enough greenery outside. The room was cut in half by a long counter, cluttered with wire baskets full of papers and brightly colored flyers taped to the front. There were three desks behind the counter, one of which was manned by a large, red-haired woman wearing glasses. She was wearing a purple t-shirt, which immediately made me feel overdressed for the weather.

The red-haired woman looked up. “Can I help you?”

“I’m Bella Swan,” I informed her, and saw the immediate awareness light her eyes. I was expected, a topic of gossip no doubt. The Chief’s daughter, the one with the unstable mom, come home at last.

“Of course,” she said. She dug through a precariously stacked pile of documents on her desk till she found the ones she was looking for. “I have your schedule right here, Isabella, and a map of the school.” She brought several sheets to the counter to show me.

“Um, it’s Bella, please.”

“Oh, sure, Bella.”

She went through my classes for me, highlighting the best route to each on the map, and gave me a slip to have each teacher sign, which I was to bring back at the end of the day. She smiled at me and hoped, like Charlie, that I would like it here in Forks. I smiled back as convincingly as I could.

When I went back out to my truck, other students were starting to arrive. I drove around the school, following the line of traffic. I was glad to see that most of the cars were older like mine, nothing flashy. At home, I’d lived in one of the few lower-income neighborhoods that were included in the Paradise Valley District. It was a common thing to see a new Mercedes or Porsche in the student lot. The nicest car here was a brand-new silver Volvo, and it stood out. Still, I cut the engine as soon as I was in a spot, so that the thunderous volume wouldn’t draw attention to me.

I looked at the map in the truck, trying to memorize it now; hopefully I wouldn’t have to walk around with it stuck in front of my nose all day. I stuffed everything in my backpack, slung the strap over my shoulder, and sucked in a huge breath. I can do this, I lied to myself feebly. No one was going to bite me. I finally exhaled, and stepped out of the truck.

I pulled my hood down over my face as I walked to the sidewalk, crowded with teenagers. My plain black jacket didn’t stand out, I noticed with relief, though there wasn’t much I could do about my height. I hunched my shoulders and kept my head down.

Once I got around the cafeteria, building three was easy to spot. A large black “3” was painted on a white square on the east corner. I tried holding my breath as I followed two unisex raincoats through the door.

The classroom was small. The people in front of me stopped just inside the door to hang up their coats on a long row of hooks. I copied them. They were two girls, one a porcelain-colored blonde, the other also pale, with light brown hair. At least my skin wouldn’t be a standout here.

I took the slip up to the teacher, a narrow woman with thinning hair whose desk had a nameplate identifying her as Ms. Mason. She gawked at me when she saw my name— not an encouraging response— and I could feel the blood rush into my face, no doubt forming unattractive splotches across my cheeks and neck. But at least she sent me to an empty desk at the back without introducing me to the class. I tried to fold myself into the little desk as inconspicuously as possible.

It was harder for my new classmates to stare at me in the back, but somehow, they managed. I kept my eyes down on the reading list the teacher had given me. It was fairly basic: Brontë, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Faulkner. I’d already read everything. That was comforting… and boring. I wondered if my mom would send me my folder of old essays, or if she would think that was cheating. I went through different arguments with her in my head while the teacher droned on.

When the bell rang, a nasal buzzing sound, a gangly boy with skin problems and hair black as an oil slick leaned across the aisle to talk to me.

“You’re Isabella Swan, aren’t you?” He looked like the overly helpful, chess club type.

“Bella,” I corrected. Everyone within a three-seat radius turned to look at me.

“Where’s your next class?” he asked.

I had to check in my bag. “Um, Government, with Jefferson, in building six.”

There was nowhere to look without meeting curious eyes.

“I’m headed toward building four, I could show you the way.…” Definitely over-helpful. “I’m Eric,” he added.

I smiled tentatively. “Thanks.”

We got our jackets and headed out into the rain, which had picked up. I could have sworn several people behind us were walking close enough to eavesdrop. I hoped I wasn’t getting paranoid.

“So, this is a lot different than Phoenix, huh?” he asked.

“Very.”

“It doesn’t rain much there, does it?”

“Three or four times a year.”                                       

“Wow, what must that be like?” he wondered.

“Sunny,” I told him.

“You don’t look very tan.”

“My mother is part albino.”

He studied my face apprehensively, and I sighed. It looked like clouds and a sense of humor didn’t mix. A few months of this and I’d forget how to use sarcasm.

We walked back around the cafeteria, to the south buildings by the gym. Eric followed me right to the door, though it was clearly marked.

“Well, good luck,” he said as I touched the handle. “Maybe we’ll have some other classes together.” He sounded hopeful.

I smiled at him— in what I hoped was not an encouraging way— and went inside.

The rest of the morning passed in about the same fashion. My Trigonometry teacher, Ms. Varner, who I would have disliked anyway just because of the subject she taught, was the only one who made me stand in front of the class and introduce myself. I stammered, went splotchy red, and tripped over my own boots on the way to my seat.

After two classes, I started to recognize several of the faces in each room. There was always someone braver than the others who would introduce themselves and ask me questions about how I was liking Forks. I tried to be diplomatic, but mostly I just lied a lot. At least I never needed the map.

One girl sat next to me in both Trig and Spanish, and she walked with me to the cafeteria for lunch. She was tiny, not even up to my shoulder, but her wildly curly dark hair made up some of the difference between our heights. I couldn’t remember her name, so I smiled and nodded as she prattled about teachers and classes. I didn’t try to keep up.

We sat at the end of a full table with several of her friends, who she introduced to me. I forgot all their names as soon as she spoke them. They seemed impressed by her bravery in speaking to me. The boy from English, Eric, waved at me from across the room, and they all laughed. Already the butt of the joke. It was probably a new record for me. But none of them seemed mean-spirited about it.

It was there, sitting in the lunchroom, trying to make conversation with seven curious strangers, that I first saw them.

They were seated in the corner of the cafeteria, as far away from where I sat as possible in the long room. There were five of them. They weren’t talking, and they weren’t eating, though they each had a tray of untouched food in front of them. They weren’t gawking at me, unlike most of the other students, so it was safe to stare at them without fear of meeting an excessively interested pair of eyes. But it was none of these things that caught, and held, my attention.

They didn’t look anything alike. There was one boy, and he was big—muscled like a serious weight lifter, with dark, curly hair. Then there was a girl, with hair the color of honey hanging to her shoulders; she was not quite so tall as the boy, but still probably taller than most of the guys at my table. There was something intense about her, edgy.

The next girl was smaller, with untidy, bronze-colored hair. She looked younger than the others, who looked like they could be in college, or even teachers here rather than students.

The other two girls were opposites. The tall one was statuesque. She had a beautiful figure, the kind you saw on the cover of the _Sports Illustrated_ swimsuit issue. Her hair was golden, gently waving to the middle of her back. The short girl was pixielike, thin in the extreme, with small features. Her hair was a deep black, cropped short and pointing in every direction.

Totally different, and yet, they were all exactly alike. Every one of them was chalky pale, the palest of all the students living in this sunless town. Paler than me, the albino. They all had very dark eyes —from here they looked black— despite the range in hair tones. There were deep shadows under those eyes—purplish, bruiselike shadows. As if they were all suffering from a sleepless night, or almost done recovering from a broken nose. Though their noses, all their features, were straight, perfect, angular.

But all this is not why I couldn’t look away.

I stared because their faces, so different, so similar, were all devastatingly, inhumanly beautiful. They were faces you never expected to see except perhaps on the airbrushed pages of a fashion magazine. Or in a museum, painted by an old master as the face of an angel. It was hard to believe they were real.

I decided the most beautiful of all was the smaller girl with the bronze-colored hair, though I expected the male half of the student body would vote for the movie-star blond girl. They would be wrong, though. I mean, all of them were gorgeous, but the smaller girl was something more than just beautiful. She was absolutely perfect. It was an upsetting, disturbing kind of perfection. It made my stomach uneasy.

They were all looking away; away from each other, away from the other students, away from anything in particular as far as I could tell. As I watched, the small girl rose with her tray—unopened soda, unbitten apple—and walked away with a quick, graceful lope that belonged on a runway. I watched, amazed at her lithe dancer’s step, till she dumped her tray and glided through the back door, faster than I would have thought possible. My eyes darted back to the others, who sat unchanging.

“Who are _they?”_ I asked the girl from my Spanish class, whose name I’d forgotten.

As she looked up to see who I meant— though already knowing, probably, from my tone— suddenly the bronze-haired girl looked at us, the perfect one. She looked at my neighbor for just a fraction of a second, and then her dark eyes flickered to mine. Long eyes, angled up at the corners, thick lashes.

She looked away quickly, more quickly than I could, though I dropped my stare as soon as she’d glanced our way. I could feel the patches of red start to bloom in my face. In that brief flash of a glance, her face held nothing of interest— it was as if she had heard her name, and she’d looked up in involuntary response, already having decided not to answer.

My neighbor giggled in embarrassment, looking at the table like I did.

“That’s Edith and Emmett Cullen, and Rosalie and Jessamine Hale. The one who left was Alice Cullen. They live with Dr. Cullen and her husband.” She said this under her breath.

I glanced sideways at the beautiful girl, who was looking at her tray now, picking a bagel to pieces with thin, pale fingers. Her mouth was moving very quickly, her full lips barely opening. The other three still looked away, and yet I felt she was speaking quietly to them.

Strange, unpopular names, I thought. The kinds of names grandparents had. But maybe that was in vogue here— small-town names? I finally remembered that my neighbor was called Jessica, a perfectly common name. There were two girls named Jessica in my History class back home.

“They’re all very… nice-looking.” I struggled with the conspicuous understatement.

“Yes!” Jessica agreed with another giggle. “Those two are _together_ , though— Emmett and Rosalie, I mean. And they _live_ together.” Her voice held all the shock and condemnation of the small town, I thought critically. But, if I was being honest, I had to admit that even in Phoenix, it would cause gossip.

“Which ones are the Cullens?” I asked, wanting to change the tone but not the subject. “They don’t look related… well, I mean, sort of…”

“Oh, they’re not. Dr. Cullen is really young, in her early thirties. The Cullen kids are all adopted. The Hales _are_ sisters, twins—the blondes—and they’re foster children.”

“They look a little old for foster children.”

“They are now. Rosalie and Jessamine are both eighteen, but they’ve been with Mr. Cullen since they were little. He’s their uncle or something like that.”

“That’s really kind of nice—for them to take care of all those kids like that, when they’re so young and everything.”

“I guess so,” Jessica admitted reluctantly, and I got the impression that she didn’t like the doctor and her husband for some reason. With the glances she was throwing at their adopted children, I would presume the reason was jealousy. “I think that Dr. Cullen can’t have any kids, though,” she added, as if that lessened their kindness.

Throughout all this conversation, my eyes flickered again and again to the table where the strange family sat. They continued to look at the walls and not eat.

“Have they always lived in Forks?” I asked. Surely I would have noticed them on one of my summers here.

“No,” she said in a voice that implied it should be obvious, even to a new arrival like me. “They just moved down two years ago from somewhere in Alaska.”

I felt a surge of pity, and relief. Pity because, as beautiful as they were, they were outsiders, clearly not accepted. Relief that I wasn’t the only newcomer here, and certainly not the most interesting by any standard.

As I examined them, the perfect girl, one of the Cullens, looked up and met my gaze, this time with evident curiosity in her expression. As I looked swiftly away, it seemed to me that her glance held some kind of unmet expectation.

“Which one is the girl with the reddish brown hair?” I asked. I tried to glance casually in that direction, like I was just checking out the cafeteria; she was still staring at me, but not gawking like the other students had today— she had a slightly frustrated expression. I looked down again.

“That’s Edith. She’s a little strange… kind of cold. She’s always getting asked out, but she’s never gone out with anyone. Apparently none of the guys here are good enough for her,” Jessica sniffed.  

I bit my lip to hide my smile. Then I glanced at her again. Edith. Her face was turned away, but I thought from the shape of her cheek that she might be smiling, too.

After a few more minutes, the four of them left the table together. They all were noticeably graceful—even the big, brawny one. It was a strange thing to watch them in motion together. Edith didn’t look at me again.

I sat at the table with Jessica and her friends longer than I would have if I’d been sitting alone. I was anxious not to be late for class on my first day. One of my new acquaintances, who considerately reminded me that her name was Angela, had Biology II with me the next hour. We walked to class together in silence. She was shy, too.

When we entered the classroom, Angela went to sit at a black-topped lab table exactly like the ones I was used to at home. She already had a neighbor. In fact, all the tables were filled but one. Next to the center aisle, I recognized Edith Cullen by her unusual metallic hair, sitting next to that single open seat.

My heart started pounding a little faster than usual. As I walked down the aisle to introduce myself to the teacher and get my slip signed, I was watching her surreptitiously. Just as I passed, she suddenly went rigid in her seat. She stared at me again, meeting my eyes with the strangest expression on her face—it was hostile, furious. I looked away quickly, shocked, going red again. I stumbled over a book in the walkway and had to catch myself on the edge of a table. The girl sitting there giggled.

I’d been right about the eyes. They were black— coal black.

Mrs. Banner signed my slip and handed me a book with no nonsense about introductions. I could tell we were going to get along. Of course, she had no choice but to send me to the one open seat in the middle of the room. I kept my eyes down as I went to sit by _her_ , bewildered by the antagonistic glare she’d given me.

I didn’t look up as I set my book on the table and took my seat, but I saw her posture change from the corner of my eye. She was leaning away from me, sitting on the extreme edge of her chair and averting her face like she smelled something bad. Inconspicuously, I sniffed. My shirt smelled like laundry detergent. It seemed an innocent enough odor. I let my hair fall over my right shoulder, making a dark curtain between us, and tried to pay attention to the teacher.

Unfortunately the lecture was on cellular anatomy, something I’d already studied. I took notes carefully anyway, always looking down.

I couldn’t stop myself from peeking occasionally through the screen of my hair at the strange girl next to me. Throughout the entire class, she never relaxed her stiff position on the edge of her chair, sitting as far from me as possible. Her hand was clenched into a fist on top of her left thigh, tendons standing out under her pale skin. This, too, she never relaxed. She had the sleeves of her white henley pushed up to her elbows, and her forearm flexed with surprisingly hard muscle beneath her pale skin. I couldn’t help but notice how perfect that skin was. Not one freckle, not one scar.

The class seemed to drag on longer than the others. Was it because the day was finally coming to a close, or because I was waiting for her tight fist to loosen? It never did; she continued to sit so still it looked like she wasn’t even breathing. What was wrong with her? Was this her normal behavior? I questioned my quick judgment on Jessica’s bitterness at lunch today. Maybe she wasn’t just jealous.

This couldn’t have anything to do with me. She didn’t know me from Eve.

Mrs. Banner passed some quizzes back when the class was almost done. She handed me one to give to the girl. I glanced at the top automatically— one hundred percent… and I’d been spelling her name wrong in my head. It was Edythe, not Edith. I’d never seen it spelled that way, but it fit her better.

I glanced down at her as I slid the paper over, and then instantly regretted it. She was glaring up at me again, her long, black eyes full of revulsion. As I flinched away from the hate radiating from her, the phrase _if looks could kill_ suddenly ran through my mind.

At that moment, the bell rang loudly, making me jump, and Edythe Cullen was out of her seat. She moved like a dancer, every perfect line of her body in harmony with all the others, her back to me, and she was out the door before anyone else was out of their seat.

I sat frozen in my seat, staring blankly after her. She was so harsh. It wasn’t fair. I began gathering up my things slowly, trying to block out the confusion and guilt that filled me, for fear my eyes would tear up. Why should I feel guilty? I hadn’t done anything wrong. How could I have? Unless she could tell, somehow, that I was…

“Aren’t you Isabella Swan?” a male voice asked.

I looked up to see a cute, baby-faced boy, his pale blond hair carefully gelled into orderly spikes, smiling at me in a friendly way. He obviously didn’t think I smelled bad.

“Bella,” I corrected him, smiling back.

“I’m Mike.”

“Hi, Mike.”

“Do you need any help finding your next class?”

“I’m headed to the gym, actually. I think I can find it.”

“That’s my next class, too.” He seemed thrilled, though it wasn’t that big of a coincidence in a school this small.

We walked to class together; he was a chatterer— he supplied most of the conversation, which made it easy for me. He’d lived in California till he was ten, so he knew how I felt about the sun. It turned out he was in my English class also. He was the nicest person I’d met today.

But as we were entering the gym, he asked, “So, did you stab Edythe Cullen with a pencil or what? I’ve never seen her act like that.”

I winced. So I wasn’t the only one who had noticed. And, apparently, that _wasn’t_ Edythe Cullen’s usual behavior. I decided to play dumb.

“Was that the girl I sat next to in Biology?” I asked artlessly.

“Yeah,” he said. “She looked like she was in pain or something.”

“I don’t know,” I responded. “I never spoke to her.”

“She’s weird.” Mike lingered by me instead of heading to the dressing room. “If I were lucky enough to sit by you, I would have talked to you.”

I smiled at him before walking through the girls’ locker room door. He was friendly and clearly admiring. But that wasn’t enough to make me forget the last strange hour.

The Gym teacher, Coach Clapp, found me a uniform, but didn’t make me dress down for today’s class. At home, only two years of P.E. were required. Here, P.E. was mandatory all four years. My own special version of hell.

I watched four volleyball games running simultaneously. Remembering how many injuries I had sustained— and inflicted—playing volleyball, I felt faintly nauseated.

The final bell rang at last. I walked slowly to the office to return my paperwork. The rain had drifted away, but the wind was strong, and colder. I zipped my jacket up and shoved my free hand into a pocket.

When I walked into the warm office, I almost turned around and walked back out.

Edythe Cullen stood at the desk in front of me. I recognized again that tangled bronze hair. She didn’t appear to notice the sound of my entrance. I stood pressed against the back wall, waiting for the receptionist to be free.

Edythe was arguing with her in a low, velvety voice. I quickly picked up the gist of the argument. She was trying to trade from sixth-hour Biology to another time— any other time.

I just couldn’t believe that this was about me. It had to be something else, something that happened before I entered the Biology room. The look on her face must have been about another aggravation entirely. It was impossible that this stranger could take such a sudden, intense dislike to me.

The door opened again, and the cold wind suddenly gusted through the room, rustling the papers on the desk, swirling my hair around my face. The girl who came in merely stepped to the desk, placed a note in the wire basket, and walked out again. But Edythe Cullen’s back stiffened, and she turned slowly to glare at me— her face was absurdly beautiful, not even one tiny flaw to make her seem human— with piercing, hate-filled eyes. For an instant, I felt the oddest thrill of genuine fear, raising the hair on my arms. The look only lasted a second, but it chilled me more than the freezing wind. She turned back to the receptionist.

“Never mind, then,” she said hastily in a voice like silk. “I can see that it’s impossible. Thank you so much for your help.” And she turned on her heel without another look at me, and disappeared out the door.

I went meekly to the desk, my face white for once instead of red, and handed her the signed slip.

“How did your first day go, dear?” the receptionist asked maternally.

“Fine,” I lied, my voice weak. She didn’t look convinced.

When I got to the truck, it was almost the last car in the lot. It seemed like a haven, already the closest thing to home I had in this wet, green hell. I sat inside for a while, just staring out the windshield blankly. But soon I was cold enough to want the heater, so I turned the key and the engine roared to life. I headed back to Charlie’s house, trying to think of nothing at all.

 


	3. Open Book

THE NEXT DAY WAS BETTER… AND WORSE.

It was better because it wasn’t raining yet, though the clouds were dense and opaque. It was easier because I knew better what to expect of the day. Mike came to sit by me in English, and walked with me to my next class, with Chess Club Eric glaring at him all the while; that was kind of flattering. People didn’t stare at me quite as much as they had yesterday. I sat with a big group at lunch that included Mike, Eric, Jessica, and several other people whose names and faces I now remembered. I began to feel like I might be treading water, instead of drowning in it.

It was worse because I was tired; I still couldn’t sleep with the rain beating on the house. It was worse because Ms. Varner called on me in Trig when my hand wasn’t raised and I had the wrong answer. It was miserable because I had to play volleyball, and the one time I didn’t cringe out of the way of the ball, I hit two of my teammates in the head with one bad volley. And it was worse because Edythe Cullen wasn’t in school at all.

All morning I was dreading lunch, not wanting to remember her bizarre glares. Part of me wanted to confront her and demand to know what her problem was. While I was lying sleepless in my bed, I even imagined what I would say. But I knew myself too well to think I would really have the guts to do it. Maybe if she hadn’t been so abnormally beautiful.

But when I walked into the cafeteria with Jessica— trying to keep my eyes from sweeping the place for her, and failing entirely— I saw that her four siblings of sorts were sitting together at the same table as before, and she was not with them.

Mike intercepted us and steered us to his table. Jessica seemed elated by the attention, and her friends quickly joined us. But as I tried to listen to their easy chatter, I was terribly uncomfortable, waiting nervously for the moment Edythe would arrive. I hoped that she would simply ignore me when she came, and prove my suspicions false.

She didn’t come, and as time passed I grew more and more tense.

I walked to Biology with more confidence when, by the end of lunch, she still hadn’t showed. Mike, who was taking on the qualities of a golden retriever, walked faithfully by my side to class. I held my breath at the door, but Edythe Cullen wasn’t here, either. I exhaled and went to my seat. Mike followed, talking about an upcoming trip to the beach. He lingered by my desk till the bell rang, then he smiled at me wistfully and went to sit by a girl with braces and a wild perm.

It looked like I was going to have to do something about Mike, and it wouldn’t be easy. In a town like this, where everyone lived on top of everyone else, diplomacy was essential. I had never been enormously tactful; I had no practice dealing with overly friendly boys.

I was relieved that I had the desk to myself, that Edythe was absent. I told myself that repeatedly. But I couldn’t get rid of the nagging suspicion that I was the reason she wasn’t there. It was ridiculous, and egotistical, to think that I could affect anyone that strongly. It was impossible. And yet I couldn’t stop worrying that it was true.

When the school day was finally done, and the patches of red were fading out of my face from the latest volleyball incident, I changed quickly back into my jeans and heavy sweater. I hurried from the girls’ locker room, pleased to find that I had successfully evaded my retriever friend for the moment. I hurried out to the parking lot. It was crowded now with fleeing students. I got in my truck and dug through my backpack to make sure I still had what I needed.

Last night I’d discovered that Charlie couldn’t cook much besides fried eggs and bacon. So I requested that I be assigned kitchen detail for the duration of my stay. He was willing enough to hand over the keys to the banquet hall. A quick search revealed that he had no food in the house. So I had my grocery list and the cash from the jar in the cupboard labeled FOOD MONEY, and I was on my way to the Thriftway.

I gunned the thunderous engine to life, ignoring the heads that turned in my direction, and backed carefully into a place in the line of cars that were waiting to exit the parking lot. As I waited, trying to pretend that the earsplitting rumble was coming from someone else’s car, I saw the two Cullens and the Hale twins walking up to their car. It was the shiny new Volvo. Of course. I hadn’t noticed their clothes before— I’d been too mesmerized by their faces. Now that I looked, it was obvious that they were all dressed exceptionally well; simply, but in clothes that subtly hinted at designer origins. Attractive as they all were, they could have worn dishrags and pulled it off. It seemed excessive for them to have both looks and money. Though, as far as I could tell, life worked that way most of the time. It didn’t look as if it bought them any acceptance here.

No, I didn’t fully believe that. The isolation must be their desire; I couldn’t imagine any door that wouldn’t be opened by that degree of beauty.

They looked at my noisy truck as I passed them, just like everyone else. I kept my eyes straight forward and was relieved when I finally was free of the school grounds.

The Thriftway was not far from the school, just a few streets south, off the highway. It was nice to be inside the supermarket; it felt normal. I did most of the shopping at home, and I fell easily into the pattern of the familiar task. The store was big enough inside that I couldn’t hear the tapping of the rain on the roof to remind me where I was.

When I got home, I unloaded all the groceries, reorganizing the cupboards till everything was in a place that made sense. I hoped Charlie wouldn’t mind. I wrapped potatoes in foil and stuck them in the oven to bake, covered a steak in marinade and balanced it on top of a carton of eggs in the fridge.

I kind of have a sixth sense about my mom. I realized, as I was closing the fridge, that I hadn’t let her know I’d made it yesterday. She was probably freaking out. I ran up the stairs two at a time and fired up the old computer in my room. It took a minute to wheeze to life and then I had to wait for a connection. Once I was online, three messages showed up in my in-box. The first was from yesterday, while I was still en route.

“Bella,” my mom wrote…

_Write me as soon as you get in. Tell me how your flight was. Is it raining? I miss you already. I’m almost finished packing for Florida, but I can’t find my pink blouse. Do you know where I put it? Phil says hi. Mom._

I sighed, and went to the next. It was sent six hours after the first.

_Bella,_

_Why haven’t you e-mailed me yet? What are you waiting for? Mom._

The last was from this morning.

_Isabella,_

_If I haven’t heard from you by 5:30 p.m. today I’m calling Charlie._

I checked the clock. I still had an hour, but my mom was known for jumping the gun.

_Mom,_

_Calm down. I’m writing right now. Don’t do anything rash. Bella._

I sent that, and then started the next, beginning with a lie.

_Everything is great. Of course it’s raining. I was waiting for something to write about. School isn’t bad, just a little repetitive. I met some nice kids who sit by me at lunch._

_Your blouse is at the dry cleaners— you were supposed to pick it up Friday._

_Charlie bought me a truck, can you believe it? I love it. It’s old, but really sturdy, which is good, you know, for me._

_I miss you, too. I’ll write again soon, but I’m not going to check my e-mail every five minutes. Relax, breathe. I love you. Bella._

I had decided to read _Wuthering Heights—_ the novel we were currently studying in English—yet again for the fun of it, and that’s what I was doing when Charlie came home. I’d lost track of the time, and I hurried downstairs to take the potatoes out and put the steak in to broil.

“Bella?” my father called out when he heard me on the stairs.

Who else? I thought to myself.

“Hey, Dad, welcome home.”

“Thanks.” He hung up his gun belt and stepped out of his boots as I bustled about the kitchen. As far as I was aware, he’d never shot the gun on the job. But he kept it ready. When I’d come here as a child, he would always remove the bullets as soon as he walked in the door. I guess he considered me old enough now not to shoot myself by accident, and not depressed enough to shoot myself on purpose.

“What’s for dinner?” he asked warily. My mother was an imaginative cook, when she bothered, and her experiments weren’t always edible. I was surprised, and sad, that he seemed to remember that far back.

“Steak and potatoes,” I answered, and he looked relieved.

He seemed to feel awkward standing in the kitchen doing nothing; he lumbered into the living room to watch TV while I worked. I think we were both more comfortable that way. I made a salad while the steaks cooked, and set the table.

I called him in when dinner was ready, and he sniffed appreciatively as he walked into the room.

“Smells good, Bell.”

“Thanks.”

We ate in silence for a few minutes. It wasn’t uncomfortable. Neither of us was bothered by the quiet. In some ways, we were well suited for living together.

“So, how did you like school? Make any friends?” he asked as he was taking seconds.

“Well, I have a few classes with a girl named Jessica. I sit with her friends at lunch. And there’s this boy, Mike, who’s friendly. Everybody seems pretty nice.” With one outstanding exception.

“That must be Mike Newton. Nice kid— nice family. His dad owns the sporting goods store just outside of town. He makes a good living off all the backpackers who come through here.”

We ate in silence for a minute.

“Do you know the Cullen family?” I asked hesitantly.

“Dr. Cullen’s family? Sure. She’s a great woman.”

“They— the kids— are a little… different. They don’t seem to fit in very well at school.”

I was surprised to see Charlie’s face get red, the way it does when he’s angry.

“People in this town,” he muttered. “Dr. Cullen is a brilliant surgeon who could probably work in any hospital in the world, make ten times the salary she gets here,” he continued, getting louder. “We’re lucky to have her— lucky that her husband wanted to live in a small town. She’s an asset to the community, and all of those kids are well behaved and polite. I had my doubts, when they first moved in, with all those adopted teenagers. I thought we might have some problems with them. But they’re all very mature— I haven’t had one speck of trouble from any of them. That’s more than I can say for the children of some folks who have lived in this town for generations. And they stick together the way a family should— camping trips every other weekend.… Just because they’re newcomers, people have to talk.”

It was the longest speech I’d ever heard Charlie make. He must feel strongly about whatever people were saying.

I backpedaled. “They seemed nice enough to me. I just noticed they kept to themselves. They’re all very attractive,” I added, trying to be more complimentary.

“You should see the doctor,” Charlie said, laughing. “It’s a good thing she’s happily married. A lot of the hospital staff have a hard time concentrating on their work with her around.”

We lapsed back into silence as we finished eating. He cleared the table while I started on the dishes. He went back to the TV, and after I finished washing the dishes by hand— no dishwasher— I went upstairs unwillingly to work on my math homework. I could feel a tradition in the making.

That night it was finally quiet. I fell asleep quickly, exhausted.

The rest of the week was uneventful. I got used to the routine of my classes. By Friday I was able to recognize, if not name, almost all the kids at school. In Gym, the people on my team learned not to pass me the ball and to step quickly in front of me if the other team tried to take advantage of my weakness. I happily stayed out of their way.

Edythe Cullen didn’t come back to school.

Every day, I watched anxiously until the rest of the Cullens entered the cafeteria without her. Then I could relax and join in the lunchtime conversation. Mostly it centered around a trip to the La Push Ocean Park in two weeks that Mike was putting together. I was invited, and I agreed to go, more out of politeness than desire. I believed beaches should be hot, and— aside from the ocean— dry.

By Friday I was perfectly comfortable entering my Biology class, no longer worried that Edythe would be there. For all I knew, she had dropped out of school. I tried not to think about her, but I couldn’t totally suppress the worry that I was responsible for her continued absence, ridiculous as it seemed.

My first weekend in Forks passed without incident. Charlie, unused to spending time in the usually empty house, worked most of the weekend. I cleaned the house, got ahead on my homework, and wrote my mom more bogusly cheerful e-mail. I did drive to the library Saturday, but it was so poorly stocked that I didn’t bother to get a card; I would have to make a date to visit Olympia or Seattle soon and find a good bookstore. I wondered idly what kind of gas mileage the truck got… and shuddered at the thought.

The rain stayed soft over the weekend, quiet, so I was able to sleep well.

People greeted me in the parking lot Monday morning. I didn’t know all their names, but I waved back and smiled at everyone. It was colder this morning, but happily not raining. In English, Mike took his accustomed seat by my side. We had a pop quiz on _Wuthering Heights_. It was straightforward, very easy.

All in all, I was feeling a lot more comfortable than I had thought I would feel by this point. More comfortable than I had ever expected to feel here.

When we walked out of class, the air was full of swirling bits of white. I could hear people shouting excitedly to each other. The wind bit at my cheeks, my nose.

“Wow,” Mike said. “It’s snowing.”

I looked at the little cotton fluffs that were building up along the sidewalk and swirling erratically past my face.

“Ugh.” Snow. There went my good day.

He looked surprised. “Don’t you like snow?”

“Snow means it’s too cold for rain.” Obviously. “Besides, I thought it was supposed to come down in flakes— you know, each one unique and all that. These just look like the ends of Q-tips.”

“Haven’t you ever seen snow fall before?” he asked incredulously.

“Sure I have.” I paused. “On TV.”

Mike laughed. And then a big, squishy ball of dripping snow smacked into the back of his head. We both turned to see where it came from. I had my suspicions about Eric, who was walking away, his back toward us— in the wrong direction for his next class. Mike apparently had the same notion. He bent over and began scraping together a pile of the white mush.

“I’ll see you at lunch, okay?” I kept walking as I spoke. The last thing I wanted was a wad of dirty ice melting down my neck the rest of the day.

He just nodded, his eyes on Eric’s retreating figure.

I kept a sharp lookout on the way to the cafeteria with Jessica after Spanish. Mush balls were flying everywhere. I had a binder in my hands, ready to use it as a shield if necessary. Jessica thought I was hilarious, but something in my expression kept her from lobbing a snowball at me herself.

Mike caught up to us as we walked in the doors, laughing, with ice melting the spikes in his hair. He and Jessica were talking animatedly about the snow fight as we got in line to buy food. I glanced toward that table in the corner out of habit. And then I froze where I stood. There were five people at the table.

Jessica pulled on my arm.

“Hello? Bella? What do you want?”

I looked down; my ears were hot. I had no reason to feel self-conscious, I reminded myself. I hadn’t done anything wrong.

“What’s with Bella?” Mike asked Jessica.

“Nothing,” I answered. I grabbed a soda bottle as I caught up to the end of the line.

“Aren’t you hungry?” Jessica asked.

“Actually, I feel a little sick,” I said. She shuffled a few steps away from me.

I waited for them to get their food, and then followed them to the table, my eyes on my feet.

I sipped my soda slowly, stomach churning. Twice Mike asked, with unnecessary concern, how I was feeling. I told him it was nothing, but I was wondering if I _should_ play it up and escape to the nurse’s office for the next hour.

Ridiculous. I shouldn’t have to run away.

I decided to permit myself one glance at the Cullen family’s table. If she was glaring at me, I would skip Biology, like the coward I was.

I kept my head down and glanced up under my lashes. None of them were looking this way. I lifted my head a little.

They were laughing. Edythe, Jessamine, and Emmett all had their hair entirely saturated with melting snow. Alice and Rosalie were leaning away as Emmett shook his dripping hair toward them. They were enjoying the snowy day, just like everyone else— only they looked more like a scene from a movie than the rest of us.

But, aside from the laughter and playfulness, there was something different, and I couldn’t quite pinpoint what that difference was. I examined Edythe, comparing her to my memory of last week. Her skin was less pale, I decided— flushed from the snow fight maybe— the circles under her eyes much less noticeable. Her hair was darker, wet and slicked down against her head. But there was something more. I pondered, staring, trying to isolate the change.

“Bella, what are you staring at?” Jessica intruded, her eyes following my stare.

At that precise moment, Edythe’s eyes flashed over to meet mine.

I dropped my head, letting my hair fall to conceal my face. I was sure, though, in the instant our eyes had met, that she didn’t look angry or disgusted as she had the last time I’d seen her. She looked merely curious again, unsatisfied in some way.

“Edythe Cullen is staring at you,” Jessica said into my ear.

“She doesn’t look angry, does she?” I couldn’t help asking.

“No.” Jessica said, sounding confused by my question. “Should she be?”

“I don’t think she likes me,” I confided. I kept my body angled toward Jessica, but the back of my neck had goose bumps, like I could feel her eyes on me.

“The Cullens don’t like anybody… well, they don’t notice anybody enough to like them. But she’s still staring at you.”

“Stop looking at her,” I hissed.

She snickered, but she looked away.

Mike interrupted us then— he was planning an epic battle of the blizzard in the parking lot after school and wanted us to join. Jessica agreed enthusiastically. The way she looked at Mike left little doubt that she would be up for anything he suggested. I kept silent. I wondered how many years I would have to live in Forks before I was bored enough to find frozen water exciting. Probably much longer than I planned to be here.

For the rest of the lunch hour I very carefully kept my eyes at my own table. I decided to honor the bargain I’d made with myself. Edythe didn’t look like she was planning to murder me anymore, so I would go to Biology. My stomach did frightened little flips at the thought of sitting next to her again.

I didn’t really want to walk to class with Mike as usual— he seemed to be a popular target for the snowball snipers— but when we got to the door, everyone besides me groaned in unison. It was raining, washing all traces of the snow away in clear, icy ribbons down the side of the walkway. I pulled my hood up, hiding my smile. I would be free to go straight home after Gym.

Mike kept up a string of complaints on the way to building four.

Once inside the classroom, I saw with relief that Edythe’s chair was still empty. It gave me a minute to settle myself. Mrs. Banner was walking around the room, distributing one microscope and box of slides to each table. Class still had a few minutes before it started, and the room buzzed with conversation. I kept my eyes away from the door, doodling idly on the cover of my notebook.

I heard very clearly when the chair next to me moved, but I kept my eyes focused on the pattern I was drawing.

“Hello,” said a quiet, musical voice.

I looked up, stunned that she was speaking to me. She was sitting as far away from me as the desk allowed, but her chair was angled toward me. Her hair was dripping wet, disheveled—even so, she looked like she’d just finished shooting a commercial. Her dazzling face was friendly, open, a slight smile on her full, pink lips. But her long eyes were careful.

“My name is Edythe Cullen,” she continued. “I didn’t have a chance to introduce myself last week. You must be Bella Swan.”

My mind was whirling with confusion. Had I made up the whole thing? She was perfectly polite now. I had to speak; she was waiting. But I couldn’t think of anything conventional to say.

“H-how do you know my name?” I stammered.

She laughed a soft, enchanting laugh.

“Oh, I think everyone knows your name. The whole town’s been waiting for you to arrive.”

I grimaced, though it wasn’t as if I hadn’t guessed as much.

“No,” I persisted stupidly. “I meant, why did you call me Bella?”

She seemed confused. “Do you prefer Isabella?”

“No, I like Bella,” I said. “But I think Charlie— I mean, my dad— must call me Isabella behind my back— that’s what everyone here seemed to know me as.” The more I tried to explain, the more moronic it sounded.

“Oh.” She let it drop. I looked away awkwardly.

Luckily, Mrs. Banner started class at that moment. I tried to concentrate as she explained the lab we would be doing today. The slides in the box were out of order. Working as lab partners, we had to separate the slides of onion root tip cells into the phases of mitosis they represented and label them accordingly. We weren’t supposed to use our books. In twenty minutes, she would be coming around to see who had it right.

“Get started,” she commanded.

“Would you like to go first, partner?” Edythe asked. I looked up to see her smiling a dimpled smile so beautiful that I could only stare at her like a fool.

“Or I could start, if you wish.” The smile faded; she was obviously wondering if I was mentally competent.

“No,” I said, flushing. “I’ll go ahead.”

I was showing off, just a little. I’d already done this lab, and I knew what I was looking for. It should be easy. I snapped the first slide into place under the microscope and adjusted it quickly to the 40x objective. I studied the slide briefly.

My assessment was confident. “Prophase.”

“Do you mind if I look?” she asked as I began to remove the slide. Her hand caught mine, to stop me, as she was speaking. Her fingers were ice cold, like she’d been holding them in a snowdrift before class. But that wasn’t why I jerked my hand away so quickly. When she touched me, it stung my hand like a low-voltage electric shock.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered, pulling her hand back immediately. However, she continued to reach for the microscope. I watched her, still staggered, as she examined the slide for an even shorter time than I had.

“Prophase,” she agreed, writing it neatly in the first space on our worksheet. She swiftly switched out the first slide for the second, and then glanced at it cursorily.

“Anaphase,” she murmured, writing it down as she spoke.

I kept my voice indifferent. “May I?”

She smirked and pushed the microscope to me.

I looked through the eyepiece eagerly, only to be disappointed. Dang it, she was right.

“Slide three?” I held out my hand without looking at her.

She handed it to me; it seemed like she was being careful not to touch my skin again.

I took the most fleeting look I could manage.

“Interphase.” I passed her the microscope before she could ask for it. She took a swift peek, and then wrote it down. I would have written it while she looked, but her clear, elegant script intimidated me. I didn’t want to spoil the page with my clumsy scrawl.

We were finished before anyone else was close. I could see Mike and his partner comparing two slides again and again, and another pair had their book open under the table.

Which left me with nothing to do but try not to look at her… unsuccessfully. I glanced down, and she was staring at me, that same inexplicable look of frustration in her eyes. Suddenly I identified that elusive difference in her face.

“Did you get contacts?” I blurted out.

She seemed puzzled by my apropos-of-nothing question. “No.”

“Oh,” I mumbled. “I thought there was something different about your eyes.”

She shrugged, and looked away.

In fact, I was sure there was something different. I vividly remembered the flat black color of her eyes the last time she’d glared at me— so jarring against the background of her pale skin and her auburn hair. Today, her eyes were a completely different color: a strange ocher, darker than butterscotch, but with the same golden tone. I didn’t understand how that could be, unless she was lying for some reason about the contacts. Or maybe Forks was making me crazy in the literal sense of the word.

I looked down. Her hands were clenched into hard fists again.

Mrs. Banner came to our table then, looking over our shoulders to glance at the completed lab, and then stared more intently to check the answers.

“So, Edythe, didn’t you think Isabella should get a chance with the microscope?” Mrs. Banner asked.

“Bella,” Edythe corrected automatically. “Actually, she identified three of the five.”

Mrs. Banner looked at me now; her expression was skeptical.

“Have you done this lab before?” she asked.

I smiled sheepishly. “Not with onion root.”

“Whitefish blastula?”

“Yeah.”

Mrs. Banner nodded. “Were you in an advanced placement program in Phoenix?”

“Yes.”

“Well,” she said after a moment, “I guess it’s good you two are lab partners.” She mumbled something else I couldn’t hear as she walked away. After she left, I started doodling on my notebook again.

“It’s too bad about the snow, isn’t it?” Edythe asked. I had the odd feeling that she was forcing herself to make small talk with me. Paranoia swept over me again. It was like she had heard my conversation with Jessica at lunch and was trying to prove me wrong.

“Not really,” I answered honestly, instead of pretending to be normal like everyone else. I was still trying to dislodge the stupid feeling of suspicion, and I couldn’t concentrate on putting up a socially acceptable front.

“You don’t like the cold.” It wasn’t a question.

“Or the wet.”

“Forks must be a difficult place for you to live,” she mused.

“You have no idea,” I muttered darkly.

She looked fascinated by my response, for some reason I couldn’t imagine. Her face was such a distraction that I tried not to look at it any more than courtesy absolutely demanded.

“Why did you come here, then?”

No one had asked me that— not straight out like she did, demanding.

“It’s… complicated.”

“I think I can keep up,” she pressed.

I paused for a long moment, and then made the mistake of meeting her gaze. Her long, dark gold eyes confused me, and I answered without thinking.

“My mother got remarried,” I said.

“That doesn’t sound so complex,” she disagreed, but her tone was suddenly softer. “When did that happen?”

“Last September.” I couldn’t keep the sadness out of my voice.

“And you don’t like him,” Edythe surmised, her voice still kind.

“No, Phil is fine. A little young, maybe, but nice enough.”

“Why didn’t you stay with them?”

I couldn’t fathom her interest, but she continued to stare at me with penetrating eyes, as if my dull life’s story was somehow vitally important.

“Phil travels most of the time. He plays ball for a living.” I half-smiled.

“Have I heard of him?” she asked, smiling in response, just enough for a hint of the dimples to show.

“Probably not. He doesn’t play _well_. Strictly minor league. He moves around a lot.”

“And your mother sent you here so that she could travel with him.” She said it as an assumption again, not a question.

My chin raised a fraction. “No, she did not send me here. I sent myself.”

Her eyebrows knit together. “I don’t understand,” she admitted, and she seemed more frustrated by that fact than she should be.

I sighed. Why was I explaining this to her? She stared at me, waiting.

“She stayed with me at first, but she missed him. It made her unhappy… so I decided it was time to spend some quality time with Charlie.” My voice was glum by the time I finished.

“But now you’re unhappy,” she pointed out.

“And?” I challenged.

“That doesn’t seem fair.” She shrugged, but her eyes were still intense.

I laughed once. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you? Life isn’t fair.”

“I believe I _have_ heard that somewhere before,” she agreed dryly.

“So that’s all,” I insisted, wondering why she was still staring at me that way.

Her head tilted to the side, and her gold eyes seemed to laser right through the surface of my skin. “You put on a good show,” she said slowly. “But I’d be willing to bet that you’re suffering more than you let anyone see.”

I shrugged. “I repeat… And?”

“I don’t entirely understand you, that’s all.”

I frowned. “Why would you want to?”

“That’s a very good question,” she murmured, so quietly that I wondered if she was talking to herself. However, after a few seconds of silence, I decided that was the only answer I was going to get.

It was awkward, just looking at each other, but she didn’t look away. I wanted to keep staring at her face, but I was afraid she was wondering what was wrong with me for staring so much, so finally I turned toward the blackboard. She sighed.

I looked back, and she was still looking at me, but her expression was different… a little frustrated, or irritated.

“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “Did I… Am I annoying you?”

She shook her head and smiled with half her mouth so that one dimple popped out. “No, if anything, I’m annoyed with myself.”

“Why?”

She cocked her head to the side. “Reading people… it usually comes very easily to me. But I can’t— I guess I don’t know quite what to make of you. Is that funny?”

I glanced at her without thinking… and told the truth again. “More… unexpected. My mom always calls me her open book. According to her, you can all but read my thoughts printing out across my forehead.”

Her smile vanished and she half-glared into my eyes, not angry like before, just intense. As if she was trying hard to read that printout my mom had seen. Then, switching gears just as abruptly, she was smiling again.

“I suppose I’ve gotten overconfident.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. “Um, sorry?”

She laughed, and the sound was like music, though I couldn’t think of the instrument to compare it to. Her teeth were perfect— no surprise there— and blinding white.

Mrs. Banner called the class to order then, and I turned with relief to listen. It was a little too intense, making small talk with Edythe. I felt dizzy in a strange way. Had I really just detailed my dreary life to this bizarre, beautiful girl who might or might not despise me? She’d seemed engrossed in our conversation, but now I could see, from the corner of my eye, that she was leaning away from me again, her hands gripping the edge of the table with unmistakable tension.

I tried to focus as Mrs. Banner went through the lab with transparencies on the overhead projector, but my thoughts were far away from the lecture.

When the bell finally rang, Edythe rushed as swiftly and as gracefully from the room as she had last Monday. And, like last Monday, I stared after her in amazement.

Mike skipped quickly to my side and picked up my books for me. I imagined him with a wagging tail.

“That was awful,” he groaned. “They all looked exactly the same. You’re lucky you had Edythe for a partner.”

“I didn’t have any trouble with it,” I said, stung by his assumption. I regretted the snub instantly. “I’ve done the lab before, though,” I added before he could get his feelings hurt.

“Edythe seemed friendly enough today,” he commented as we shrugged into our raincoats

I tried to sound indifferent. “I wonder what was with her last Monday.”

I couldn’t concentrate on Mike’s chatter as we walked to Gym, and P.E. didn’t do much to hold my interest, either. Mike was on my team today. He helpfully covered my position as well as his own, so my woolgathering was only interrupted when it was my turn to serve; my team knew to duck out of the way when I was up.

The rain was just a mist as I walked to the parking lot, but I was still pretty damp when I got in the truck. I got the heater running, for once not caring about the mind-numbing roar of the engine. I unzipped my jacket, put the hood down, and fluffed my damp hair out so the heater could dry it on the way home.

As I looked around me to make sure the way was clear, I noticed the still, white figure. Edythe Cullen was leaning against the front door of the Volvo, three cars down from me, and staring intently in my direction. The smile was gone, but at least so was the murder— for now, anyway. I looked away and threw the truck into reverse, almost hitting a rusty Toyota Corolla in my haste. Lucky for the Toyota, I stomped on the brake in time. It was just the sort of car that my truck would make scrap metal of. I took a deep breath, still looking out the other side of my car, and cautiously pulled out again, with greater success. I stared straight ahead as I passed the Volvo, but I could see enough in my peripheral vision to know that she was laughing.


	4. Phenomenon

WHEN I OPENED MY EYES IN THE MORNING, SOMETHING WAS DIFFERENT.

It was the light. It was still the gray-green light of a cloudy day in the forest, but it was clearer somehow. I realized there was no fog veiling my window.

I jumped up to look outside, and then groaned in horror.

A fine layer of snow covered the yard, dusted the top of my truck, and whitened the road. But that wasn’t the worst part. All the rain from yesterday had frozen solid— coating the needles on the trees in fantastic, gorgeous patterns, and making the driveway a deadly ice slick. I had enough trouble not falling down when the ground was dry; it might be safer for me to go back to bed now.

Charlie had left for work before I got downstairs. In a lot of ways, living with Charlie was like having my own place, and I found myself reveling in the aloneness rather than feeling lonely.

I threw down a quick bowl of cereal and some orange juice from the carton. I felt excited to go to school, and that scared me. I knew it wasn’t the stimulating learning environment I was anticipating, or seeing my new set of friends. If I was being honest with myself, I knew I was eager to get to school because I would see Edythe Cullen. And that was very, very stupid.

I should be avoiding her entirely after my brainless and embarrassing babbling yesterday. And I was suspicious of her; why should she lie about her eyes? I was still frightened of the hostility I sometimes felt emanating from her, and I was still tongue-tied whenever I pictured her perfect face. Spending more time looking at her—watching her lips move, marveling at her skin, listening to her voice— was certainly not going to help with that. I was well aware that she was almost certainly straight, and in any case, my league and her league were spheres that did not touch. So I shouldn’t be at all excited to see her again.

It took every ounce of my concentration to make it down the icy brick driveway alive. I almost lost my balance when I finally got to the truck, but I managed to cling to the side mirror and save myself. Clearly, today was going to be nightmarish.

Driving to school, I distracted myself from my fear of falling and my unwanted speculations about Edythe Cullen by thinking about Mike and Eric, and the troubling difference in how teenage boys responded to me here. I was sure I looked exactly the same as I had in Phoenix. Maybe it was just that the boys back home had watched me pass slowly through all the awkward phases of adolescence and still thought of me that way. Perhaps it was because I was a novelty here, where novelties were few and far between. Possibly the popularity of flannel in the colder climate threw off their gaydar. Whatever the reason, Mike’s puppy dog behavior and Eric’s apparent rivalry with him were disconcerting. I wasn’t sure if I didn’t prefer being ignored.

My truck seemed to have no problem with the black ice that covered the roads. I drove very slowly, though, not wanting to carve a path of destruction through Main Street.

When I got out of my truck at school, I discovered why I’d had so little trouble. Something silver caught my eye, and I walked to the back of the truck— carefully holding the side for support— to examine my tires. There were thin chains crisscrossed in diamond shapes around them. Charlie had gotten up who knows how early to put snow chains on my truck. I frowned, surprised that my throat suddenly felt tight. I wasn’t used to being taken care of, and Charlie’s unspoken concern caught me by surprise.

I was standing by the back corner of the truck, struggling to contain the sudden wave of emotion the snow chains had brought on, when I heard a strange sound.

It was a high-pitched screech, and almost as soon as I registered it, the sound was already painfully loud. I looked up, startled.

I saw several things simultaneously. Nothing was moving in slow motion, the way it does in the movies. Instead, the adrenaline rush seemed to make my brain work faster, and I was able to absorb in clear detail several things at once.

Edythe Cullen was standing four cars down from me, mouth open in horror. Her face stood out from a sea of faces, all frozen in the same mask of shock. But of more immediate importance was the dark blue van that was skidding, tires locked and squealing against the brakes, spinning wildly across the ice of the parking lot. It was going to hit the back corner of my truck, and I was standing between them. I didn’t even have time to close my eyes.

Just before I heard the shattering crunch of the van folding around the truck bed, something hit me, hard, but not from the direction I was expecting. My head cracked against the icy blacktop, and I felt something solid and cold pinning me to the ground. I realized I was lying on the pavement behind the tan car I’d parked next to. But I didn’t have a chance to notice anything else, because the van was still coming. It had curled gratingly around the end of the truck and, still spinning and sliding, was about to collide with me _again_.

“Come _on_!” She said the words so quickly I almost missed them, but the voice was impossible not to recognize. Two thin, white hands shot out in front of me, and the van shuddered to a stop a foot from my face, her pale hands fitting providentially into a deep dent in the side of the van’s body.

Then her hands moved so fast they blurred. One was suddenly gripping under the body of the van, and something was dragging me, swinging my legs around like a rag doll’s, till they hit the tire of the tan car. There was a groaning metallic thud so loud it hurt my ears, and the van settled, glass popping, onto the asphalt— exactly where, a second ago, my legs had been.

It was absolutely silent for one long second. Then the screaming began. In the abrupt bedlam, I could hear more than one person shouting my name. But more clearly than all the yelling, I could hear Edythe Cullen’s low, frantic voice in my ear.

“Bella? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” My voice sounded strange. I tried to sit up, and realized she was holding me against the side of her body. I must have been more traumatized than I realized, because I couldn’t budge her arm at all. Was I weak with shock?

“Be careful,” she warned as I struggled. “I think you hit your head pretty hard.”

I became aware of a throbbing ache centered above my left ear.

“Ow,” I said, surprised.

“That’s what I thought.” Nothing seemed funny to me, but it sounded like she was suppressing laughter.

“How in the…” I trailed off, trying to clear my head, get my bearings. “How did you get over here so fast?”

“I was standing right next to you, Bella,” she said, her tone suddenly serious again.

I turned to sit up, and this time she helped me, releasing her hold around my waist and sliding as far from me as she could in the limited space. I looked at her concerned, innocent expression, and was disoriented again by the force of her gold-colored eyes. What was I asking her?

And then they found us, a crowd of people with tears streaming down their faces, shouting at each other, shouting at us.

“Don’t move,” someone instructed.

“Get Tyler out of the van!” someone else shouted. There was a flurry of activity around us. I tried to get up, but Edythe’s hand pushed my shoulder down.

“Just stay put for now.”

“But it’s cold,” I complained. It surprised me when she chuckled under her breath. There was an edge to the sound.

“You were over there,” I suddenly remembered, and her chuckle stopped short. “You were by your car.”

Her expression hardened abruptly. “No, I wasn’t.”

“I saw you.” Everything around us was chaos. I could hear the gruffer voices of adults arriving on the scene. But I obstinately held on to the argument; I was right, and she was going to admit it.

“Bella, I was standing with you, and I pulled you out of the way.” She unleashed the full, devastating power of her eyes on me, as if trying to communicate something crucial.

“But that’s not what happened,” I said weakly.

The gold in her eyes blazed again. “Please, Bella.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Trust me?” she pleaded.

I could hear the sirens now. “Will you promise to explain everything to me later?”

“Fine,” she snapped, abruptly exasperated.

“Okay,” I mumbled, unable to process her mood swings with everything else I was trying to come to terms with. What was I supposed to think, when what I remembered was impossible?

It took six EMTs and two teachers— Ms. Varner and Coach Clapp— to shift the van far enough away from us to bring the stretchers in. Edythe vehemently refused hers, and I tried to do the same, but she was quick to contradict me. She told them I’d hit my head, and then made it sound worse than it was, throwing around words like _concussion_ and _hemorrhage_. I wanted to die when they put on the neck brace. It looked like the entire school was there, watching soberly as they loaded me in the back of the ambulance. Edythe got to ride in the front. It was a thousand times more humiliating than I’d imagined today would be, and I hadn’t even made it to the sidewalk.

To make matters worse, Chief Swan arrived before they could get me safely away.

“Bella!” he yelled in panic when he recognized me on the stretcher.

“I’m completely fine, Char— Dad,” I sighed. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”

He rounded on the closest EMT for a second opinion. While the EMT tried to talk him down, I tuned them out to consider the jumble of inexplicable images churning in my head. When they’d lifted me away from the car, I had seen the deep dent in the tan car’s bumper— a very distinct dent that fit the contours of Edythe’s shoulders… as if she had braced herself against the car with enough force to damage the metal frame.…

And then there was her family, looking on from a distance, with expressions that ranged from disapproval (Emmett) to fury (Rosalie), but held no hint of concern for their little sister’s safety.

I remembered the sensation of almost flying through the air… that hard mass that had pinned me to the ground… Edythe’s hand under the frame of the van, like it was holding the van off the ground… I tried to think of a logical explanation that could make sense of what I had just seen.

Naturally, the ambulance got a police escort to the county hospital. I felt ridiculous the whole time they were unloading me. What made it worse was that Edythe simply glided through the hospital doors under her own power.

They put me in the emergency room, a long room with a line of beds separated by pastel- patterned curtains. A nurse put a pressure cuff on my arm and a thermometer under my tongue. Since no one bothered pulling the curtain around to give me some privacy, I decided I wasn’t obligated to wear the embarrassing neck brace anymore. As soon as the nurse walked away, I quickly unfastened the Velcro and threw it under the bed.

There was another flurry of hospital personnel, another stretcher brought to the bed next to me. I recognized Tyler Crowley from my Government class beneath the bloodstained bandages wrapped tightly around his head. Tyler looked a hundred times worse than I felt. But he was staring anxiously at me.

“Bella, I’m so sorry!”

“I’m fine, Tyler— you look awful, are you all right?” As we spoke, nurses began unwinding his bloody bandages, exposing a myriad of shallow slices all over his forehead and left cheek.

He ignored me. “I thought I was going to kill you! I was going too fast, and I hit the ice wrong.…” He winced as one nurse started dabbing at his face.

“Don’t worry about it; you missed me.”

“How did you get out of the way so fast? You were there, and then you were gone.…”

“Umm… Edythe shoved me out of the way.”

He looked confused. “Who?”

“Edythe Cullen— she was standing next to me.” As usual, I didn’t sound convincing at all.

“Edythe? I didn’t see her… wow, it was all so fast, I guess. Is she okay?”

“I think so. She’s here somewhere, but they didn’t make her use a stretcher.”

I knew I wasn’t crazy. What had happened? There was no way to explain away what I’d seen.

They wheeled me away then, to X-ray my head. I told them there was nothing wrong, and I was right. Not even a concussion. I asked if I could leave, but the nurse said I had to talk to a doctor first. So I was trapped in the ER, harassed by Tyler’s constant apologies and promises to make it up to me. No matter how many times I tried to convince him I was fine, he continued to beg for forgiveness. Finally, I closed my eyes and tried to ignore him.

“Is she sleeping?” a musical voice asked. My eyes flew open.

Edythe was standing at the foot of my bed, her expression more a smirk than a smile. I stared at her, trying to put the pieces together in my head. She didn’t look like someone who could stop attacking vehicles with her bare hands. But then, she also didn’t look like anyone I’d ever seen before.

“Hey, um, Edythe, I’m really sorry—” Tyler began.

Edythe lifted a hand to stop him.

“No blood, no foul,” she said, flashing her brilliant teeth. She moved to sit on the edge of Tyler’s bed, facing me. She smirked again.

“So, what’s the verdict?” she asked me.

“There’s nothing wrong with me at all, but they won’t let me go,” I said. “How come you aren’t strapped to a gurney like the rest of us?”

“It’s all about who you know,” she answered. “But don’t worry, I came to spring you.”

Then a doctor walked around the corner, and my mouth fell open. She was young, she was blond… and she was more beautiful than any movie star I’d ever seen. She was pale, though, and tired-looking, with circles under her dark eyes. From Charlie’s description, this had to be Edythe’s mother.

“So, Miss Swan,” Dr. Cullen asked in a gentle voice, “how are you feeling?”

“I’m fine,” I said, for the last time, I hoped.

She walked to the lightboard on the wall over my head, and turned it on.

“Your X-rays look good,” she said. “Does your head hurt? Edythe said you hit it pretty hard.”

“It’s fine,” I repeated with a sigh, throwing a quick, questioning look Edythe’s way. She avoided my eyes.

The doctor’s cool fingers probed lightly along my skull. She noticed when I winced.

“Tender?” she asked.

“Not really.” I’d had worse.

I heard a chuckle, and looked over to see Edythe smiling.

“Well, your father is in the waiting room— you can go home with him now. But come back if you feel dizzy or have trouble with your eyesight at all.”

“Can’t I go back to school?” I asked, imagining Charlie trying to play nurse.

“Maybe you should take it easy today.”

I glanced at Edythe. “Does _she_ get to go to school?”

“Someone has to spread the good news that we survived,” Edythe said blithely.

“Actually,” Dr. Cullen corrected, “most of the school seems to be in the waiting room.”

“Ugh,” I moaned, covering my face with my hands.

Dr. Cullen raised her eyebrows. “Do you want to stay?”

“No, no!” I insisted, throwing my legs over the side of the bed and hopping down quickly. Too quickly— I staggered, and Dr. Cullen caught me. She was sturdier than she looked.

“I’m fine,” I assured her again. No need to explain that my balance problems had nothing to do with hitting my head.

“Take some Tylenol for the pain,” she suggested as she steadied me.

“It doesn’t hurt that bad,” I insisted.

“It sounds like you were extremely lucky,” Dr. Cullen said, smiling as she signed my chart with a flourish.

“Lucky Edythe just happened to be standing next to me,” I amended, shooting a hard glance at the subject of my statement.

“Oh, well, yes,” Dr. Cullen agreed, suddenly occupied with the papers in front of her. Then she looked away, at Tyler, and walked to the next bed. My intuition flickered; the doctor was in on it.

“I’m afraid that _you’ll_ have to stay with us just a little bit longer,” she said to Tyler, and began checking his cuts.

As soon as the doctor’s back was turned, I moved to Edythe’s side.

“Can I talk to you for a minute?” I hissed under my breath. She took a step back from me, her jaw suddenly clenched.

“Your father is waiting for you,” she said through her teeth.

I glanced at Dr. Cullen and Tyler.

“I’d like to speak with you alone, if you don’t mind,” I pressed.

She glared— but it wasn’t the same as that first day, not nearly as homicidal, so I just waited. After a second, she turned her back and stalked quickly down the long room. Long as my legs are, I nearly had to run to keep up. As soon as we turned the corner into a short hallway, she spun around to face me.

“What do you want?” she asked, sounding annoyed. Her eyes were cold.

Her unfriendliness intimidated me. My words came out with less certainty than I’d planned. “You owe me an explanation,” I reminded her.

“I saved your life— I don’t owe you anything.”

I flinched back from the resentment in her voice. “Why are you acting like this?”

“Bella, you hit your head, you don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her tone was cutting.

Her anger only made me more sure that I was right, though. “There’s nothing wrong with my head.”

She turned up the heat of her glare. “What do you want from me, Bella?”

“I want to know the truth,” I said. “I want to know why I’m lying for you.”

“What do you _think_ happened?” she snapped.

It came out in a rush.

“I know that you weren’t standing next to me— Tyler didn’t see you, either, so it’s not concussion damage. That van was going to crush us both— but it didn’t. It looked like your hands left dents in the side of it— and your shoulders left a dent in the other car, but you’re not hurt at all. The van should have smashed my legs, but you were holding it up.…” It just kept sounding worse and worse. I couldn’t continue.

She was staring at me, her eyes wide and incredulous. But she couldn’t entirely hide the tension, the defensiveness.

“You think I lifted a van off you?” Her tone questioned my sanity, but it only made me more suspicious. It was like a line delivered by a skilled actor— so hard to doubt, but at the same time, the frame of the movie screen reminded you nothing was actually real.

I merely nodded once, jaw tight.

She smiled, hard and mocking. “Nobody will believe that, you know.”

“I’m not going to tell anybody.”

Surprise flitted across her face, and the smile faded. “Then why does it matter?”

“It matters to me,” I insisted. “I don’t like to lie— so there’d better be a good reason why I’m doing it.”

“Can’t you just thank me and get over it?”

“Thank you,” I said, and then folded my arms. Waiting.

“You’re not going to let it go, are you?”

“No.”

“In that case… I hope you enjoy disappointment.”

She scowled at me, and I stared back, thoughts scattered by how beautiful her anger was. I was the first to speak, trying to keep myself focused. I was in danger of being totally distracted. It was like trying to stare down a destroying angel.

“Why did you even bother?” I asked frigidly.

She paused, and for a brief moment her stunning face was unexpectedly vulnerable.

“I don’t know,” she whispered.

And then she turned her back on me and walked away.

It took me a few minutes until I was able to move. When I could walk, I made my way slowly to the exit at the end of the hallway.

The waiting room was unpleasant, like I’d expected. It seemed like every face I knew in Forks was there, staring at me. Charlie rushed to my side; I put up my hands.

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” I assured him, abruptly aggravated by the whole situation.

“What did the doctor say?”

“Dr. Cullen saw me, and she said I was fine and I could go home.” I sighed. Mike and Jessica and Eric were all there, beginning to converge on us. “Let’s go,” I urged.

Charlie put one arm behind my back, not quite touching me, and led me to the glass doors of the exit. I waved sheepishly at my friends, hoping to convey that they didn’t need to worry anymore. It was a huge relief— the first time I’d ever felt that way— to get into the cruiser.

We drove in silence. I was so wrapped up in my thoughts that I barely knew Charlie was there. I was positive that Edythe’s defensive behavior in the hall was a confirmation of the bizarre things I still could hardly believe I’d witnessed.

When we got to the house, Charlie finally spoke.

“Um… you’ll need to call Renée.” He hung his head, guilty.

I was appalled. “You told _Mom_?”

“Sorry.”

I slammed the cruiser’s door a little harder than necessary on my way out.

My mom was in hysterics, of course. I had to tell her I felt fine at least thirty times before she would calm down. She begged me to come home —forgetting the fact that home was empty at the moment— but her pleas were easier to resist than I would have thought. I was consumed by the mystery Edythe presented. And more than a little obsessed by Edythe herself. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I wasn’t as eager to escape Forks as I should be, as any normal, sane person would be.

I decided I might as well go to bed early that night. Charlie continued to watch me anxiously, and it was getting on my nerves. I stopped on my way to grab three Tylenol from the bathroom. They did help, and, as the pain eased, I drifted to sleep.

That was the first night I dreamed of Edythe Cullen.


	5. Invitations

IN MY DREAM IT WAS VERY DARK, AND WHAT DIM LIGHT THERE WAS seemed to be radiating from Edythe’s skin. I couldn’t see her face, just her back as she walked away from me, leaving me in the blackness. No matter how fast I ran, I couldn’t catch up to her; no matter how loud I called, she never turned. I got more and more frantic to get to her, until that anxiety woke me. It was the middle of the night, but I couldn’t sleep again for what seemed like a very long time. After that, she was in my dreams nearly every night, but always on the periphery, never within reach.

The month that followed the accident was uneasy, tense, and, at first, embarrassing.

To my dismay, I found myself the center of attention for the rest of the week. Tyler Crowley was impossible, following me around, obsessed with making amends to me somehow. I tried to convince him that what I wanted more than anything else was for him to forget all about it— especially since nothing had actually happened to me— but he remained insistent. He followed me between classes and sat at our now-crowded lunch table. Mike and Eric didn’t seem to like that; they were even less friendly toward him than they were to each other, which made me worry that I’d gained another unwelcome fan.

No one seemed concerned about Edythe— no one followed her around or asked for her eyewitness account. I always included her in my version; she was the hero— she had pulled me out of the way and nearly been crushed, too, but everyone else always commented that they hadn’t even realized she was there until the van was pulled away.

I wondered a lot about why no one else had noticed her standing so far away by her car, before she was suddenly and impossibly saving my life. With chagrin, I realized the probable cause—no one else was as aware of Edythe as I always was. No one watched her the way I did. How pitiful.

People avoided Edythe the same way they usually did. The Cullens and the Hales sat at the same table as always, not eating, talking only amongst themselves. None of them ever glanced my way anymore.

When Edythe sat beside me in class, as far from me as the table would allow, she seemed totally unaware of my presence. Like my seat was empty. Only now and then, when her fists would suddenly ball up— skin stretched even whiter over her knuckles— did I wonder if she wasn’t quite as oblivious as she appeared.

I wanted very much to continue our conversation from the hospital hallway, and the day after the accident I tried. She’d been so furious when we talked before. I still was angry that she wouldn’t trust me with the truth, even though I was keeping my part of the bargain flawlessly. But she had in fact saved my life, no matter how she’d done it. And, overnight, the heat of my anger faded into awed gratitude.

She was already seated when I got to Biology. She didn’t turn when I sat down, just kept staring straight ahead. She showed no sign that she realized I was there.

“Hey, Edythe,” I said.

She turned her head half an inch toward me, but her eyes stayed focused on the blackboard. She gave me one little half-nod, then turned her face away from me.

And that was the last contact I’d had with her, though she was there, a foot away from me, every day. I watched her sometimes, unable to stop myself— always from a distance, though, in the cafeteria or parking lot. I watched as her golden eyes grew perceptibly darker day by day. But in class I gave no more notice that she existed than she showed toward me. It was miserable. And the dreams continued.

She wished she hadn’t pushed me out of the way of Tyler’s van. I couldn’t think of any other explanation. Since she obviously preferred me dead, she was pretending that I was.

Despite my outright lies, the tone of my e-mails alerted Renée to my depression. She called a few times, demanding to know I was okay. I tried to convince her it was just the rain that had me down.

Mike, meanwhile, grew more confident, sitting on the edge of my table to talk before Biology class started, ignoring Edythe as completely as Edythe ignored us. The snow washed away for good after that one dangerously icy day. Mike complained that he’d never gotten to stage his big snowball fight, but he was pleased that the beach trip would soon be possible. The rain continued heavily, though, and the weeks passed.

Jessica made me aware of another event looming on the horizon—she called the first Tuesday of March to ask my permission to invite Mike to the girls’ choice spring dance in two weeks.

“Are you sure you don’t mind… you weren’t planning to ask him?” she persisted when I told her I didn’t mind in the least.

“No, Jess, I’m not going,” I assured her. Dancing was glaringly outside my range of abilities, anyway.

“It will be really fun.” Her attempt to convince me was halfhearted. I suspected that Jessica enjoyed my inexplicable popularity more than my actual company.

“You have fun with Mike,” I encouraged.

The next day, I was surprised that Jessica wasn’t her usual gushing self in Trig and Spanish. She was silent as she walked by my side between classes, and I was afraid to ask her why. If Mike had turned her down, I was the last person she would want to tell.

My fears were strengthened during lunch when Jessica sat as far from Mike as possible, chatting animatedly with Eric. Mike was unusually quiet.

He was still quiet as he walked with me to Biology, but he didn’t broach the subject until I was in my seat and he was perched on my lab table. As always, I was electrically aware of Edythe sitting close enough to touch, but still so distant she might as well have been a product of my imagination.

“So,” Mike said, looking at the floor instead of at me. “Jessica asked me to the spring dance.”

“That’s great.” I made my voice bright and enthusiastic. “You’ll have a lot of fun with Jessica.”

  
“Well…” He floundered as he examined my smile, clearly not happy with my response. “I told her I had to think about it.”

“Why would you do that?” I let disapproval color my tone, though I was relieved he hadn’t given her an absolute no.

His face was bright red as he looked down again. Pity shook my resolve.

“I was wondering if… well, if you might be planning to ask me.”

From the corner of my eye, I saw Edythe’s head suddenly tilt in my direction. Like she was listening to my answer, too.

It took me a little too long to respond. I still felt guilty, but mostly distracted. _Was_ Edythe listening?

“Mike, I think you should tell her yes,” I said.

Mike’s face fell. “Did you already ask someone?”

“No. It’s a moot point anyway. I’m going to be in Seattle that day.” I needed to get out of town anyway— two Saturdays from now was the perfect time to go.

“Does it have to be _that_ weekend?” Mike asked.

“Yeah. But don’t worry about me. You shouldn’t make Jess wait any longer—it’s rude.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” he mumbled, and turned, dejected, to walk back to his seat. I watched his shoulders slump forward, and I felt horrible. I closed my eyes and pressed my fingers against my temples, trying to force the guilt and sympathy out of my head. Mrs. Banner started talking. I sighed and opened my eyes.

Edythe was staring straight at me, that familiar expression of frustration even more obvious now in her black eyes.

I stared back, surprised, expecting her to look away. She didn’t. Her eyes kept boring into mine, like she was trying to find something really important inside them. I continued to stare also, totally unable to break the connection, even if I wanted to. My hands started to shake.

“Miss Cullen?” the teacher called, seeking the answer to a question that I hadn’t heard.

“The Krebs Cycle,” Edythe answered, seeming reluctant as she turned to look at Mrs. Banner.

I put my head down, pretending to stare at my book, as soon as her eyes released me. It bothered me— the rush of emotion pulsing through me, just because she’d happened to look at me for the first time in a half-dozen weeks. It wasn’t normal. It was pathetic. More than pathetic, it was unhealthy.

I tried hard not to be aware of her for the rest of the class, or, since that was impossible, at least not to let her know that I was aware of her. When the bell rang at last, I turned away from her to stack up my books, expecting her to rush out as usual.

“Bella?” Her voice shouldn’t sound so familiar, as if I’d been hearing it all my life instead of just an hour here and there a few weeks ago.

I turned slowly toward her, not wanting to feel what I knew I _would_ feel when I looked at her too-perfect face. I’m sure my expression was guarded; hers was unreadable. She didn’t say anything.

“Yes?” I asked.

She just looked at me.

“So… um, are you… or are you not talking to me again?”

“Not,” she said, but her lips curled up into a smile, her dimples flashing.

“Okay…” I looked away— down at my hands, then over toward the chalkboard. It was hard to concentrate when I looked at her, and this conversation wasn’t making much sense.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and there was no joke in her voice now. “I’m being very rude, I know. But it’s better this way, really.”

I looked at her again; her expression was totally serious now.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“It’s better if we’re not friends,” she explained. “Trust me.”

My eyes narrowed. I’d heard _that_ one before.

She seemed surprised by my reaction. “What are you thinking?” she asked.

“I guess… that it’s too bad you didn’t figure this out earlier, saved yourself the regret.”

“Regret?” My answer seemed to have caught her off guard. “Regret for what?”

“For not letting Tyler’s van crush me when it had the chance.”

She looked completely astonished. She stared at me for a minute, wide-eyed, and when she finally spoke she almost sounded mad.

“You think I regret saving your life?” The words were quiet, just under her breath, but intense.

I glanced quickly toward the front of the room, where a couple of kids were still lingering. I caught one of them looking at us. He looked away and I turned back to Edythe.

“Yeah,” I said, just as quietly. “I mean, what else? Seems kind of obvious.”

She made the strangest sound— she exhaled through her teeth and it was like a _hiss_. She still looked mad.

“You’re an idiot,” she told me.

Well, that was my limit.

It was bad enough that I was so fixated on this girl, bad enough that I thought about her all the time, dreamed about her every night. I didn’t need to sit here like the moron she thought I was and just stare while she insulted me. I grabbed my books and lurched out of my chair, knowing all the while that she was right— I was an idiot, because I wanted to stay, even if all I got to hear was more abuse from her. I needed to get out of the room as fast as possible, so of course, I tripped over the threshold and half-fell through the doorway, my books scattering across the sidewalk. I stood there for a second with my eyes closed, thinking about leaving them. Then I sighed and bent to pick them up.

Edythe was there; she’d already stacked them in a pile, which she offered to me. I took them without really looking at her.

“Thanks,” I mumbled.

“You’re welcome,” she answered. Still mad, sounded like.

I straightened up, and stalked off to Gym without looking back.

Gym was brutal. We’d moved on to basketball. My team never passed to me now, which was good, but with all the running I still managed to have a few accidents per game. Today was worse than yesterday, because I couldn’t concentrate on my feet. All I could think of was Edythe.

It was a relief, as usual, when I was finally free to leave. I couldn’t wait to be back inside my truck; there were just so many people I wanted to avoid. The truck had suffered only minimal damage in the accident. I’d had to replace the taillights, but that was it. If the paint job weren’t already hopeless, maybe I would have had to touch that up. Tyler’s parents had to sell his van for parts.

I rounded the corner and nearly had a heart attack. Someone was leaning against the side of my truck. I skidded to a stop, then took a deep breath. It was just Eric. I started walking again.

“Hey, Eric,” I called.

“Hi, Bella.”

“What’s up?” I asked as I went to unlock the door. I glanced at him, and fumbled my keys. I wasn’t paying attention to the uncomfortable edge in his voice, so his next words took me by surprise.

“Um, I was wondering… if you would go to the spring dance with me?” His voice broke on the last word.

“I thought it was girls’ choice,” I said, too startled to be diplomatic.

“Well, yeah,” he admitted, shamefaced.

I carefully inserted the car key into the lock. “Sorry, Eric, I’m not going to the dance. I’m going to be in Seattle that day.”

I had to look at him then. His face was down, his black hair hiding his eyes.

“Oh, okay.”

“It’s the only day I can go. So, you know, oh well. I hope it’s fun and all.”

He glanced up from under his hair. “Okay,” he repeated, but his voice was slightly more cheerful now. “Maybe next time.”

“Sure,” I agreed, and then immediately regretted it. Hopefully he wouldn’t take that too literally.

He slouched off, back toward the school. I heard a low chuckle.

Edythe was walking past the front of my truck, looking straight forward, her mouth not betraying even the hint of a smile.

I froze for a second. I wasn’t prepared to be so close to her. I was used to bracing myself before Biology, but this was unexpected. She kept walking. I jerked the door open and climbed in, slamming it a little too hard behind me. I revved the deafening engine twice and reversed out into the aisle. Edythe was in her car already, two spaces down, sliding out into the lane in front of me, cutting me off. She stopped there— to wait for her family, I assumed. I could see the four of them walking this way, but they were still all the way back by the cafeteria. I looked in my rearview mirror. A line was beginning to form. Directly behind me, Tyler Crowley was in his recently acquired used Sentra, waving. I ducked my head and pretended I couldn’t see him.

While I was sitting there, focusing all my efforts on not staring at the driver in front of me, I heard a knock on my passenger side window. It was Tyler. I glanced in my rearview mirror again, confused. His Sentra was still running, the door left open. I leaned across the cab to crank the window down. It was stiff. I got it halfway there, then gave up.

“Sorry, Tyler, I can’t move. I’m pinned in.” I gestured to the Volvo. Obviously there was nothing I could do.

“Oh, I know— I just wanted to ask you something while we’re trapped here.” He grinned.

This could not be happening.

“Will you ask me to the spring dance?” he continued.

“I’m not going to be in town, Tyler.” I realized I sounded too sharp. I had to remember it wasn’t Tyler’s fault that Mike and Eric had already used up my quota of patience for the day.

“Yeah, Mike said that,” he admitted.

“Then why—”

He shrugged. “I was hoping you were just letting him down easy.”

Okay, it was completely his fault. Or maybe it was my fault, for letting everyone assume I was interested in boys.

“Sorry, Tyler,” I said, working to hide my irritation. “I’m not going to the dance.”

“That’s cool,” he said, unfazed. “We still have prom.”

Before I could respond, he was walking back to his car. I could feel the red patches staining my face. Straight ahead, Alice, Rosalie, Emmett, and Jessamine were all sliding into the Volvo. In the rearview mirror, I could see Edythe’s eyes— staring at me. They were crinkled around the edges, and her shoulders were shaking with laughter. It was like she’d heard everything Tyler had said, and found my splotchy reaction hilarious. I revved my engine, wondering how much damage it would do to the Volvo and the black car beside it if I just muscled my way through and made my escape. I was pretty sure my truck could win that fight.

But they were all in, and Edythe was speeding away with her nearly silent engine. I tried to concentrate on something else— anything else— as I drove home.

I decided to make chicken enchiladas for dinner, because it would keep me busy for a while and I didn’t have that much homework. It also forced me to concentrate on all the dicing—chicken, chilies, onions. All the while, though, I kept running through Biology class again, trying to analyze every word she’d spoken to me. What did she mean, it was better if we weren’t friends?

My stomach dropped when I realized the only thing she could have meant. She must know how obsessed I was with her— it wasn’t like I was hiding it very well. She didn’t want me to get the wrong idea… so we couldn’t even be friends… because she didn’t want to hurt my feelings the way I’d hurt Mike and Eric today. (Tyler seemed fine.) Edythe didn’t want to have to feel that guilt. Or possibly she was just utterly freaked out by my obvious crush. Either way, she wasn’t into in me at all.

Which made perfect sense, obviously, because I wasn’t _interesting_ , and she wasn’t interested in girls.

My eyes were starting to sting and tear from the onions. I grabbed a dish towel, ran it under the faucet, and then rubbed it across my eyes. It didn’t really help.

I was boring— I knew this about myself. And Edythe was the opposite of boring. This wasn’t about her secret, whatever it was, if I even remembered any of that moment clearly. At this point, I almost believed the story I’d told everyone else. It made a lot more sense than what I thought I’d seen.

But she didn’t need a secret to be out of my league. She was interesting… and brilliant… and mysterious… and perfect… and beautiful. If she was, in fact, able to lift a full-sized van with one hand, it really didn’t matter. Either way, she was fantasy and I was the very most mundane kind of reality.

And that was fine. I could leave her alone. I _would_ leave her alone. I would get through my self-imposed sentence here in purgatory, and then hopefully some school in the Southwest, or possibly Hawaii, would offer me a scholarship. I focused my thoughts on palm trees and sun while I finished the enchiladas and put them in the oven.

Charlie seemed suspicious when he came home and smelled the green peppers. I couldn’t blame him—the closest edible Mexican food was probably in southern California. But he came around after the first bite. It was kind of a strange feeling, but also a good feeling, watching as he started to trust me in the kitchen.

“Dad?” I asked when he was almost done.

“Yeah, Bella?”

“Um, I just wanted to let you know that I’m going to Seattle a week from Saturday. Just for the day.” I didn’t want to ask permission— it set a bad precedent— but the statement form sounded rude, so I added, “If that’s okay?”

“Why?” He sounded surprised, as if he were unable to imagine something that Forks couldn’t offer.

“Well, I wanted to get a few books— the library here is pretty limited. And maybe some warmer clothes.” I had a little extra money, since, thanks to Charlie, I hadn’t had to buy a car—though the truck did need a bigger gasoline budget than I’d expected— and the cold-weather clothes I’d picked up in Phoenix seemed to have been designed by people who’d never actually lived in temperatures below seventy but had once had such a climate described to them.

“That truck probably doesn’t get very good gas mileage,” he said, echoing my thoughts.

“I know, I’ll stop in Montessano and Olympia— and Tacoma if I have to.”

“Are you going all by yourself?”

“Yeah.”

“Seattle is a big city— you could get lost,” he warned.

“Dad, Phoenix is five times the size of Seattle— and I can read a map, don’t worry about it.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

I wondered if he was really that worried about me, or if he just thought all the Saturdays he left me alone were adding up to neglect. Probably worried. I was sure that, in his head, he still pictured me as a five-year-old most of the time.

“That’s all right, Dad, I’ll probably just be in dressing rooms all day—very boring.”

“Oh, okay.” The thought of sitting in women’s clothing stores for any period of time immediately put him off.

“Thanks.” I smiled at him.

“Will you be back in time for the dance?”

I just stared back at him until he got it.

It didn’t take him long. “Oh, right.”

“Yeah,” I said. I didn’t get my balance issues from my mother.

The next morning at school, I deliberately parked as far as possible from the shiny silver Volvo. I would keep my distance. I wouldn’t notice her anymore. She’d have nothing to complain about from here on out.

As I slammed the truck door shut, I lost my hold on the key and it splashed down in a puddle at my feet. As I bent to retrieve it, a pale hand flashed out and grabbed it first. I jerked upright, almost smacking my head into her. Edythe Cullen was right there, leaning casually against my truck.

“How do you _do_ that?” I gasped.

“Do what?” She held out my key while she spoke. As I reached for it, she dropped it in my palm.

“Appear out of thin air?”

“Bella, it’s not my fault if you are exceptionally unobservant.” Her voice was just a murmur, muted velvet, and her lips were holding back a smile. Like she thought I was hilarious.

How was I supposed to ignore her when she wouldn’t ignore me? That was what she wanted, right? Me, out of her long, bronze-y hair? Wasn’t that what she’d said to me yesterday? We couldn’t be friends. Then why was she talking to me? Was she sadistic? Was this her idea of fun— torture the awkward lesbian she could never possibly care about?

I stared at her, frustrated. Her eyes were light again today, a deep, golden honey color. My thoughts got tangled up, and I had to look down. Her feet were just a half-foot from mine, oriented toward me, unmoving. Like she was waiting for a response.

I looked past her, toward the school, and said the first thing that came into my mind. “Why the traffic jam last night? I thought you were supposed to be pretending I don’t exist.”

“Ah. That was for Tyler’s sake. He was figuratively dying for his chance at you.” She snickered.

I blinked. “What?” Irritation from yesterday’s memory bled into my voice. I hadn’t thought Edythe and Tyler were friends. Did Tyler ask her…? That didn’t seem likely.

“And I’m not pretending you don’t exist,” she continued like I hadn’t spoken.

I met her eyes again, trying hard to keep my mind focused, no matter how golden they seemed, or how long her lashes were against her pale violet lids.

“I don’t know what you want from me,” I told her.

It was annoying how my thoughts seemed to explode straight through my lips when I was near her, like I had no filter at all. I would never have spoken this way to another girl.

The amused half-smile disappeared, and her face was suddenly guarded.

“Nothing,” she said too quickly, almost like she was lying.

“Then you probably should have let the van take me out. Easier that way.”

She stared for a second, and when she answered, her voice was cold. “Bella, you are utterly absurd.”

I must be right about the torture thing. I was just a way for her to pass time in this boring town. An easy mark.

I was past her in one long stride.

“Wait,” she said, but I forced myself to keep moving, not to look back.

“I’m sorry, that was rude,” she said, somehow right next to me, keeping pace though my legs were probably twice as long as hers. “I’m not saying it wasn’t true, but it was rude to say it out loud.”

“Why won’t you leave me alone?”

“I wanted to ask you something, but you sidetracked me.”

I sighed and slowed, though she didn’t seem like she was having a hard time keeping up. “Fine.” I was such a sucker. “What do you want?”

“I was wondering if, a week from Saturday— you know, the day of the spring dance—”

I stopped, wheeling to look down at her. “Is this _funny_ to you?”

She stared up at me, seeming oblivious to the drizzling rain that was falling. She was apparently wearing no makeup at all— nothing smudged or ran. Of course, her face was just that perfect naturally. For a second, I was actually angry— angry that she had to be so beautiful. Angry that her beauty had made her cruel. Angry that I was the object of her cruelty, and even though I knew it, I still couldn’t successfully walk away from her.

Her amused expression was back, the hint of dimples threatening on her cheeks.

“Will you please allow me to finish?” she asked.

_Walk away,_ I told myself.

I didn’t move.

“I heard that you were going to Seattle that day, and I wondered if you wanted a ride.”

That was not what I was expecting.

“What?”

“Do you want a ride to Seattle?”

I wasn’t sure where her joke was heading now. “With who?”

“Myself, obviously.” She enunciated every syllable, as if she thought maybe English wasn’t my first language.

“Why?” Where was the punch line?

“Well, I was planning to go to Seattle in the next few weeks, and to be honest, I’m not sure if your truck can make it.”

Finally, I was able to start walking again, goaded by the insult to my truck.

“Make fun of me all you want, but leave the truck out of it,” I said.

Again, she kept up easily. “Why would you think that I’m making fun of you?” she asked. “The invitation is genuine.”

“My truck works just fine, thank you very much for your concern.”

“Can your truck make it to Seattle on one tank of gas?”

Before the truck, I’d never cared one way or another about any car, but I could feel a prejudice against Volvos forming.

“I don’t see how that’s your problem.”

“The wasting of finite resources is everyone’s problem,” she said primly.

“Seriously, Edythe.” I felt a thrill go through me as I said her name aloud, and I didn’t like it. “I can’t keep up with you. I thought you didn’t want to be my friend.”

“I said it would be better if we weren’t friends, not that I didn’t want to be.”

“Oh, thanks, now that’s _all_ cleared up.” Thick sarcasm. I realized I had stopped walking again. I looked down at her rain-washed face, clean and perfect, and my thoughts stuttered to a halt.

“It would be more… _prudent_ for you not to be my friend,” she explained. “But I’m tired of trying to stay away from you, Bella.”

There was no humor in her face now. Her eyes were intense, narrowed, the long lines of her lashes stark black against her skin. Her voice smoldered. I couldn’t remember how to breathe.

“Will you accept a ride with me to Seattle?” she demanded, voice still burning.

I couldn’t speak, so I just nodded.

A quick smile reshaped her face, and then she was serious again.

“You really _should_ stay away from me,” she warned. “I’ll see you in class.”

She spun on her heel and then walked quickly back the way we’d come.


	6. Blood Type

I MADE MY WAY TO ENGLISH IN A KIND OF DAZE. I DIDN’T EVEN REALIZE WHEN I first came through the door that class had already started.

Ms. Mason’s irritated voice was my first clue. “Thank you for joining us, Miss Swan.”

Patches of red formed on my face as I hurried to my seat.

It wasn’t until class was over that I noticed Mike wasn’t sitting in his usual seat next to me, and I remembered that I had hurt his feelings. But he and Eric waited at the door for me, so I figured I wasn’t totally unforgiven. As we walked, Mike seemed to become himself again, gaining enthusiasm as he talked about the weather report for the weekend. The rain was supposed to take a minor break, and so maybe his beach trip would be possible. I tried to match his enthusiasm to make up for disappointing him yesterday, but I could tell I wasn’t fooling either of them. Rain or no rain, we would be lucky if the temperature even got close to fifty degrees. Not my idea of a beach day.

The rest of the morning passed in a blur. It was difficult to believe that I hadn’t just imagined what Edythe had said, and the way her eyes had looked when she was saying it. Maybe it was just a very convincing dream that I’d confused with reality. That seemed more probable than that I really appealed to her on any level.

I was both eager and nervous when I finally got to the cafeteria at lunchtime. Would she ignore me like usual? Would there be any sign from her that the conversation this morning had, in fact, happened? With a small percentage of my brain I listened to Jessica. She babbled on and on about her dance plans—Lauren and Angela had asked the other boys and they were all going together—completely unaware of my inattention.

Disappointment flooded through me as my eyes unerringly focused on Edythe’s table. There were only four people there, and she wasn’t one of them. Was she going to disappear every time something significant happened? Of course, the conversation this morning was only significant to me, I was sure. I lost my appetite. I grabbed a bottle of lemonade for something to carry and followed Jessica robotically through the line, wishing I were the kind of person who could just go home early, the kind who didn’t worry about unexcused absences and detention and disappointed parental figures.

“Edythe Cullen is staring at you again,” Jessica said, breaking through my abstraction with that name. “I wonder why she’s sitting alone today.”

My head snapped up. I followed her gaze to see Edythe, smiling crookedly, staring at me from an empty table across the cafeteria from where she usually sat. Once she’d caught my eye, she raised one hand and motioned with her index finger for me to join her. As I stared, not entirely believing my own eyes, she winked.

“Does she mean _you_?” Jessica asked. There was an insult in her astonishment, but I was past caring.

“Um, maybe she needs help with her Biology homework,” I muttered. “I guess I should go see what she wants.”

I could feel Jessica staring after me as I walked away. I could also feel those ugly splotches of red start up my neck, and tried to calm myself.

When I got to her table, I just stood there behind the chair across from her, awkward.

“Why don’t you sit with me today?” she suggested through a wide smile.

I sat down automatically, watching her with caution. Was this how the joke ended? She hadn’t stopped smiling. I found that I still didn’t care. Whatever got me more time this close to her.

She stared back at me, still smiling. Did she want me to say something?

“This is different,” I finally managed.

“Well,” She paused, and then the rest of the words followed in a rush, blurring together so that it took me a minute to decipher the meaning. “I decided as long as I was going to hell, I might as well do it thoroughly.”

I kept waiting, thinking she would explain, but she didn’t. The silence got more uncomfortable as the seconds passed.

“You know I don’t have any idea what you mean,” I eventually pointed out.

“I’m counting on it,” she said, and then her eyes focused behind me. “I think your friends are upset that I’ve stolen you.”

Suddenly I could feel all their eyes boring into my back. For once, it didn’t bother me at all. “They’ll survive.”

She grinned, with a wicked glint in her eyes. “I may not give you back, though.”

I swallowed too loud and she laughed.

“You look worried,” she said.

“No.” I stopped to swallow again, hearing the edge of a break in my voice. “Surprised, actually… what brought all this on?” I gestured toward her and the rest of the empty table.

“I told you— I’m tired of trying to stay away from you. So I’m giving up.” The smile was fading, and her eyes were serious by the end.

“Giving up?” I repeated in confusion.

“Yes— giving up trying to be good. I’m just going to do what I want now, and let the chips fall where they may.” The smile disappeared completely, and a hard edge crept into her silky voice.

“You lost me again.”

The breathtaking crooked smile reappeared.

“I always say too much when I’m talking to you— that’s one of the problems.”

“Don’t worry— I don’t understand any of it,” I said wryly.

“Like I said— I’m counting on that.”

We stared at each other for a few seconds, but the quiet wasn’t awkward this time. It was more… charged. My face started to get hot again.

“So,” I said, looking away so that I could catch my breath. “In plain English, are we friends now?”

“Friends…,” she mused, dubious.

“Or not,” I offered.

She grinned. “Well, we can try, I suppose. But I’m warning you again that I’m not a good friend for you to have.” Behind her smile, the warning was real.

“You say that a lot,” I noted, trying to ignore the sudden trembling in my stomach and keep my voice even.

“I do, because you’re not listening. I’m still waiting for you to believe it. If you’re smart, you’ll avoid me.”

Then I had to smile, and I watched as her smile automatically got bigger in response. “I thought we’d already come to the conclusion that I’m an idiot. Or absurd, or whatever.”

“I did apologize— for the second one, at least. Will you forgive me for the first? I spoke without thinking.”

“Yeah, of course. You don’t have to apologize to me.”

She sighed. “Don’t I?”

I didn’t know how to answer— it sounded like a rhetorical question anyway. I stared down at my hands wrapped around the lemonade bottle, not sure what to do now.

“What are you thinking?” she asked curiously.

I looked up into her deep gold eyes, became befuddled, and, as usual, my thoughts refused to pass through the appropriate filter.

“I’m wondering what you are.”

Her smile tightened, like her teeth were suddenly clamped together, but she held it carefully in place.

“Are you having any luck with that?” Her voice was casual, like she didn’t really care about my answer.

I blushed. I had been vacillating during the last month between Clark Kent and Peter Parker. There was no way I was going to own up to that.

“Won’t you tell me?” she asked, tilting her head to one side with a shockingly tempting smile.

But I had to try to resist. She already thought I was an idiot. I shook my head. “Too embarrassing.”

“That’s _really_ frustrating, you know,” she complained.

“Really?” I raised my eyebrows. “Like… someone refusing to tell you what they’re thinking, even if all the while they’re making cryptic little remarks designed to keep you up at night wondering what they could possibly mean… Frustrating like that?”

She frowned, her lips pouting out in a distracting way. I worked to hold on to my focus.

“Or is it frustrating like, say, that person also did a wide range of bizarre things— for example, saving your life under impossible circumstances one day, then treating you like a pariah the next— and she never explained any of that, either, even after she promised? Frustrating like that?”

Her frown twitched, then settled into a deeper scowl. “You’re really not over that yet?”

“Not quite yet.”

“Would another apology help?”

“An explanation would be better.”

She glanced over my shoulder, and then, unexpectedly, she snickered.

“What?”

“Your boyfriend thinks I’m being mean to you— he’s debating whether or not to come break up our fight.”

“I don’t have a boyfriend, and you’re trying to change the subject.”

She ignored the second half of my statement. “You might not think of him that way, but it’s how he thinks of you.”

“There’s no way that’s true.”

“It is. I told you, most people are very easy to read.”

“Except me, of course.”

“Yes. Except for you.” Her mood shifted suddenly; her eyes turned brooding. “I wonder why that is.”

I had to look away from the intensity of her stare. I concentrated on unscrewing the lid of my lemonade. I took a swig, staring at the table without seeing it.

“Aren’t you hungry?” she asked, distracted. Her stare was less penetrating now, I saw with relief.

“No.” I didn’t think it was necessary to mention that my stomach was already full of butterflies. “You?” I looked at the empty table in front of her.

“No, I’m not hungry.” I didn’t understand her expression—it looked like she was enjoying some private joke.

“Can you do me a favor?” I asked after a second of hesitation.

She was suddenly wary. “That depends on what you want.”

“It’s not much,” I assured her.

She waited, still guarded but clearly curious.

“I just wondered… Could you warn me beforehand? The next time you decide to ignore me? For my own good, or whatever. Just so I’m prepared.” I looked at the lemonade again as I asked, tracing the circle of the opening with one finger.

“That sounds fair.” She was pressing her lips together to keep from laughing when I glanced up.

“Thanks.”

“Can I have a favor in return?” she asked.

“Sure.” It was my turn to be curious. What would she want from me?

“Tell me one of your theories.”

_Whoops._ “No way.”

“You promised me a favor.”

“And you’ve broken promises before,” I reminded her.

“Just one theory— I won’t laugh.”

“Yes, you will.” I was positive about that.

She looked down, and then glanced up at me through her thick lashes, her ocher eyes scorching underneath.

“Please?” she breathed, leaning toward me.

Without permission, my body leaned closer to her, like she was a magnet and I was a paper clip, till her face was less than a foot from mine. My mind went totally blank.

“Er, what?” I asked, dazed.

“One little theory,” she purred. Her eyes still smoldered at me. “Please?”

“Um, well, bitten by a radioactive spider?” Was she a hypnotist, too? Or was I just a hopeless pushover?

She rolled her eyes. “That’s not very creative.”

“I’m sorry, that’s all I’ve got.”

“You’re not even close,” she teased.

“No spiders?”

“No spiders.”

“No radioactivity?”

“None.”

“Huh,” I sighed.

She chuckled. “Kryptonite doesn’t bother me, either.”

“You’re not supposed to laugh, remember?”

She struggled to compose her face.

“I’ll figure it out eventually,” I muttered.

Her humor vanished like a switch flipped off. “I wish you wouldn’t try.”

“Because...?”

“What if I’m not a superhero? What if I’m the bad guy?” She smiled as she said this, playfully, but her eyes were heavy with some burden I couldn’t imagine.

“Oh,” I said, surprised. Her many hints fell suddenly into place. “Oh, okay.”

She waited, suddenly rigid with stress. In that second, all of her walls seemed to disappear.

“What exactly does _okay_ mean?” she asked, so quietly it was almost a whisper.

I tried to order my thoughts, but her anxiety pushed me to answer faster. I said the words without preparing them first.

“You’re dangerous?” It came out like a question, and there was doubt in my voice. She was smaller than I was, no more than my age, and delicately built. Under normal circumstances, I would have laughed at applying the word _dangerous_ to someone like her. But she was not normal, and there was no one like her. I remembered the first time she’d glared at me with hate in her eyes, and I’d felt genuinely afraid, though I hadn’t understood that reaction in the moment, and I’d thought it foolish just seconds later. Now I understood. My pulse quickened as I intuitively realized the truth of my own words. The danger was real, though my logical mind couldn’t make sense of it. And she’d been trying to warn me all along.

“Dangerous,” I murmured again, trying to fit the word to the person in front of me. She looked at me, eyes full of some emotion I couldn’t comprehend. She seemed to be bracing herself for some kind of impact.

“But not bad,” I whispered. “No, I don’t believe that you’re bad.”

“You’re wrong.” Her voice was almost inaudible. She looked down, reaching out to steal the lid for my lemonade, which she then spun like a top between her fingers. I took advantage of her inattention to stare some more. She meant what she was saying— that was obvious. She wanted me to be afraid of her.

What I felt most was… fascinated. There were some nerves, of course, being so close to her. Fear of making a fool of myself. But all I wanted was to sit here forever, to listen to her voice and watch the expressions fly across her face, so much faster than I could analyze them.

The silence lasted until I noticed that the cafeteria was almost empty.

I shoved my chair away from the table, and she looked up. She seemed… sad. But resigned. Like this was the reaction she’d been waiting for.

“We’re going to be late,” I told her, scrambling to my feet.

She was surprised for just a second, and then the now-familiar amusement was back.

“I’m not going to class today.” Her fingers twirled the lid so fast that it was just a blur.

“Why not?”

She smiled up at me, but her eyes were not entirely disguised. I could still see the stress behind her façade. “It’s healthy to ditch class now and then,” she said.

“Oh. Well, I guess … I should go?” Was there another option? I was far too big a coward to risk getting caught, but if she asked me to…

She turned her attention back to her makeshift top. “I’ll see you later, then.”

That sounded like a dismissal, and I wasn’t totally against being dismissed. There was so much to think about, and I didn’t do my best thinking with her near. The first bell rang and I hurried to the door. I glanced back once to see that she hadn’t moved a centimeter, and the lid was still spinning in a tight circle like it would never stop.

As I half-ran to class, my head was spinning faster than the bottle cap. So few questions had been answered— none, really, when I thought through it— but so many more had been raised.

I was lucky; the teacher wasn’t in the room when I ran in late, face hot. I settled quickly into my seat, aware that both Mike and Angela were staring at me.

Mrs. Banner made her entrance then, calling the class to order while juggling a bunch of cardboard boxes in her hands. She let the boxes fall onto Mike’s table, and asked him to start passing them around the class.

“Okay, guys, I want you all to take one piece from each box,” she said as she produced a pair of rubber gloves from the pocket of her lab coat and pulled them on. The crack as the gloves snapped into place was strangely ominous. “The first should be an indicator card,” she went on, grabbing a white card about the size of an index card and displaying it to us; it had four squares marked on it instead of lines. “The second is a four-pronged applicator”— she held up something that looked like a nearly toothless hair pick—“and the third is a sterile micro-lancet.” She displayed a small piece of blue plastic before splitting it open. The barb was invisible from this distance, but my stomach plunged.

“I’ll be coming around with a dropper of water to prepare your cards, so please don’t start until I get to you.…” She began at Mike’s table again, carefully putting one drop of water in each of the four squares of Mike’s card.

“Then I want you to carefully prick your finger with the lancet.…” She grabbed Mike’s hand and jabbed the spike into the tip of Mike’s middle finger.

“Ouch,” Mike complained.

Clammy moisture broke out across my forehead and my ears began a faint ringing.

“Put a small drop of blood on each of the prongs.…” Mrs. Banner demonstrated as she instructed, squeezing Mike’s finger till the blood flowed. I swallowed convulsively, and my stomach heaved.

“And then apply it to the card,” she finished, holding up the dripping red card for us to see. I closed my eyes, trying to hear through the humming in my ears.

“The Red Cross is having a blood drive in Port Angeles next weekend, so I thought you should all know your blood type.” She sounded proud of herself. “Those of you who aren’t eighteen yet will need a parent’s permission— I have slips at my desk.”

She continued through the room with her water dropper. I put my cheek against the cool, black tabletop and tried to hold on as everything seemed to get farther away, slithering down a dark tunnel. The squeals, complaints, and giggles as my classmates skewered their fingers all sounded far off in the distance. I breathed slowly in and out through my mouth.

“Bella, are you all right?” Mrs. Banner asked. Her voice was close to my head, but still far away, and it sounded alarmed.

“I already know my blood type, Mrs. Banner. I’m O negative.”

I couldn’t open my eyes.

“Are you feeling faint?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I muttered, internally kicking myself for not ditching when I had the chance.

“Can someone walk Bella to the nurse, please?” she called.

“I will.” Even though it was far away, I recognized Mike’s voice.

“Can you walk?” Mrs. Banner asked me.

“Yes,” I whispered. _Just let me get out of here,_ I thought. _I’ll crawl._

I felt Mike grab my hand —I was sure it was all sweaty and gross but I couldn’t care about that yet— and I worked to get my eyes open while he tugged me up. I just had to get out of this room before it went full dark. I stumbled toward the door while Mike put his arm around my waist, trying to steady me. I put my arm over his shoulders, but I tried to carry my own weight as much as possible.

Mike and I lumbered slowly across campus. When we were around the edge of the cafeteria, out of sight of building four in case Mrs. Banner was watching, I stopped fighting.

“Just let me sit for a minute, please?” I asked.

Mike breathed out a sigh of relief as I settled clumsily on the edge of the walk.

“And whatever you do, keep your hand in your pocket,” I warned. Everything seemed to be swirling dizzily, even when I closed my eyes. I slumped over to one side, putting my cheek against the freezing, damp cement of the sidewalk. That seemed to help a little.

“Wow, you’re green, Bella,” Mike said nervously.

“Just gimme… a minute…”

“Bella?” a different voice called from the distance.

Oh, please no. Not this, too. Let me just be imagining that horribly familiar voice.

“What’s wrong? Is she hurt?” The voice was closer now, and it sounded strangely fierce. I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping to die. Or, at the very least, not to throw up.

Mike sounded stressed. “I think she’s fainted. I don’t know what happened, she didn’t even stick her finger.”

“Bella.” Edythe’s voice was right by my head now, and she sounded relieved. “Can you hear me?”

“No,” I groaned.

She chuckled.

“I was taking her to the nurse,” Mike explained, defensive. “But she wouldn’t go any farther.”

“I’ll take her,” Edythe said, the smile still in her voice. “You can go back to class.”

“No,” Mike protested. “I’m supposed to do it.”

Suddenly the sidewalk disappeared from beneath me. My eyes flew open in shock. Edythe had scooped me up in her arms, as easily as if I weighed ten pounds.

“I’m good, I swear,” I mumbled. Please, please let me not vomit on her. She was walking before I was finished talking.

“Hey!” Mike called after us, already ten paces behind.

Edythe ignored him. “You look awful,” she told me. I could hear the grin.

“Just put me back on the sidewalk,” I groaned. “I’ll be fine in a few minutes.” The rocking movement of her walk was not helping. She held me away from her body, gingerly, supporting all my weight with just her arms—it didn’t seem to bother her.

“So you faint at the sight of blood?” she asked. This seemed to entertain her.

I didn’t answer. I closed my eyes again and fought the nausea with all my strength, lips clamped together. The most important thing was that I not vomit on her. I could survive everything else.

“And not even your own blood!” she continued, enjoying herself.

“I have a weak vasovagal system,” I muttered. “It’s just a neurally mediated syncope.”

She laughed. Apparently, the big words I’d memorized to explain these situations did not impress her the way they were supposed to.

I wasn’t sure how she got the door open while carrying me, but suddenly it was warm—everywhere except where her body pressed against me. I wished I felt normal so that I could appreciate that more— her body touching mine. I knew that under normal circumstances I would be guiltily enjoying this.

“Oh my,” a female voice gasped.

“She’s having a neurally mediated syncope,” Edythe explained brightly.

I opened my eyes. I was in the office, and Edythe was striding past the front counter toward the door at the back of the room. Mrs. Cope, the redheaded receptionist, ran ahead of her to hold it open. A grandfatherly old man— the school medic— looked up from a novel, astonished, as Edythe swung me into the room and placed me gently on the cot. The crackly paper complained as she pushed me down with one hand against my chest, then turned and swung my feet up onto the vinyl mattress.

This reminded me of the time she’d swung my feet out of the way of the van, and the memory made me dizzy.

“She’s just a little faint,” Edythe reassured the startled nurse. “They’re blood typing in Biology.”

I watched the old man nod sagely. “There’s always one.”

Edythe covered her mouth and pretended her laugh was a cough. She’d gone to stand across the room from me. Her eyes were bright, excited.

“Just lie down for a minute, honey,” the old nurse told me. “It’ll pass.”

“I know,” I muttered. In fact, the dizziness was already beginning to fade. Soon the tunnel would shorten and things would sound normal again.

“Does this happen a lot?” he asked.

I sighed. “I have a weak vasovagal system.”

The nurse looked confused.

“Sometimes,” I told him. Edythe laughed again, not bothering to disguise it.

“You can go back to class now,” the nurse said to her.

“I’m supposed to stay with her,” Edythe answered. She said it with such assured authority that—even though he pursed his lips— the nurse didn’t argue it further.

“I’ll get you some ice for your head,” he said to me, and then he shuffled out of the room.

I let my eyelids fall shut again. “You were right.”

“I usually am— but about what in particular this time?”

“Ditching _is_ healthy.” I practiced breathing in and out evenly.

“You scared me for a minute there,” she admitted after a pause. The way she said it made it sound like she was confessing a humiliating weakness. “I thought that Newton kid was dragging your dead body off to bury it in the woods.”

“Ha ha.” I still had my eyes closed, but I was feeling more normal every minute.

“Honestly,” she said, “I’ve seen corpses with better color. I was concerned that I might have to avenge your death.”

“I bet Mike’s annoyed.”

“He absolutely loathes me,” Edythe said cheerfully.

“You don’t know that,” I countered, but then I wondered.…

“I saw his face—I could tell.”

“How did you even see me? I thought you were ditching.” I was almost fine now, though the queasiness would probably have passed faster if I’d eaten something for lunch. On the other hand, maybe it was lucky my stomach was empty.

“I was in my car, listening to a CD.” Such a normal response— it surprised me.

I heard the door and opened my eyes to see the nurse with a cold compress in his hand.

“Here you go, dear.” He laid it across my forehead. “You’re looking better,” he added.

“I think I’m okay,” I said, sitting up. Just a little ringing in my ears, no spinning. The mint green walls stayed where they should.

I could tell he was about to make me lie back down, but the door opened just then, and Ms. Cope stuck her head in.

“We’ve got another one,” she warned.

I lurched off the cot to make room for the next victim and handed the compress back to the nurse. “Here, I don’t need this.”

And then Mike staggered through the door, now supporting Lee Stephens, another boy in our Biology class. He was currently sallow green. Edythe and I drew back against the wall to give them room.

“Oh no,” Edythe muttered. “Go out to the office, Bella.”

I looked at her, bewildered.

“Trust me— go.”

I spun and caught the door before it closed, floundering out of the infirmary. I could feel Edythe right behind me.

“You actually listened to me,” she said, surprised.

“I smelled the blood,” I said, wrinkling my nose. Lee wasn’t sick from just watching other people. Much less embarrassing, I thought.

“People can’t smell blood,” Edythe contradicted.

“Well, I can— that’s what makes me sick. It smells like rust… and salt.”

She was staring at me with a wary expression.

“What?” I asked.

“It’s nothing.”

Mike came through the door then, glancing from Edythe to me and back again. The look he gave Edythe confirmed what she had said about loathing. He looked back at me, his eyes glum.

“ _You_ look better,” he accused.

“Just keep your hand in your pocket,” I cautioned him again.

“It’s not bleeding anymore,” he told me, his voice going back to normal. “Are you coming to class?”

“No thanks. I’d just have to turn around and come back.”

“Yeah, I guess.… So are you going this weekend? To the beach?” While he spoke, he flashed a dark look toward Edythe, who was standing against the cluttered counter, motionless as a sculpture, staring off into space.

I tried to sound as friendly as possible. “Sure, I said I was in.”

“We’re meeting at my parents’ store, at ten.” His eyes flickered to Edythe again, wondering if he was giving out too much information. His body language made it clear this wasn’t an open invitation.

“I’ll be there,” I promised.

“I’ll see you in Gym, then,” he said, moving uncertainly toward the door.

“See you,” I replied. He looked at me again, his round face slightly pouting, and then as he walked through the door, his shoulders slumped. Guilt lanced through me, the same as yesterday. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but it seemed like he just couldn’t put the pieces together. Did I need to spell it out for him? I thought about looking at his disappointed face all through Gym.

“Ugh, Gym,” I groaned.

“I can take care of that.” I hadn’t noticed Edythe moving to my side, but she spoke now in my ear. “Go sit down and look pale,” she instructed in a whisper.

That wasn’t a challenge; I was usually pale, and my recent episode had left a light sheen of sweat on my face. I sat in one of the creaky folding chairs and rested my head against the wall with my eyes closed. Fainting spells were exhausting.

I heard Edythe speaking softly at the counter.

“Ms. Cope?”

I hadn’t heard her return to her desk, but he answered, “Yes?”

“Bella has Gym next hour, and I don’t think she feels well enough. Actually, I was thinking I should take her home now. Do you mind excusing her from class?” Her voice was like melting honey. I could imagine how much more overwhelming her eyes would be.

“Do you need to be excused, too, Edythe?” Ms. Cope fluttered. Why couldn’t I do that to people?

“No, I have Mrs. Goff,” Edythe said. “She won’t mind.”

“Okay, it’s all taken care of. You feel better, Bella,” Ms. Cope called to me. I nodded weakly, hamming it up just a bit.

“Can you walk, or do you want me to carry you again?” With her back to the receptionist, her expression became sarcastic.

“I’ll walk.”

I stood carefully, and I was still fine. She held the door for me, her smile polite but her eyes mocking. I walked out into the cold, fine mist that had just begun to fall. It felt nice— the first time I’d enjoyed the never-ending moisture falling out of the sky— as it washed the sweat off my face.

“Thanks for that,” I said when she’d followed me out. “It’s almost worth getting sick to miss Gym.”

“Anytime.” She was staring straight forward, squinting into the rain.

“So are you going? This Saturday— the beach trip?” I was hoping she would, though it seemed unlikely. I couldn’t picture her loading up to carpool with the rest of the kids from school; she didn’t belong in the same world. But just wishing that she might gave me the first twinge of enthusiasm I’d felt for the outing.

“Where are you all going, exactly?” She was still staring ahead, expressionless, but her question made me hope she was considering it.

“Down to La Push, to First Beach.” I studied her face, trying to read it. I thought I saw her eyes narrow just slightly.

She glanced at me from the corner of her eye, smiling wryly. “I really don’t think I was invited.”

“I just invited you.”

“Let’s you and I not push poor Mike any further this week. We don’t want him to snap.” Her eyes danced, like she was enjoying the idea more than she should.

“Mike-schmike,” I grumbled, preoccupied by the way she’d said _you and I_. I liked it more than I should.

We were at the parking lot now, so I angled toward my truck. Something caught my jacket and yanked me back half a step.

“Where are you going?” she asked, surprised. She was gripping a fistful of my jacket in one hand. She didn’t look like she’d even planted her feet. For a second I couldn’t answer.

“Home. Or am I not?” Her expression confused me.

She smiled. “Didn’t you hear me promise to take you safely home? Do you think I’m going to let you drive in your condition?”

“What condition?”

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you have a weak vasovagal system.”

“I think I’ll survive,” I said. I tried to take another step toward my truck, but her hand didn’t free my jacket.

I stopped and looked at her again. “Okay, why don’t you tell me what you want me to do?”

Her smile got wider. “Very sensible. You’re going to get into my car, and I am going to drive you home.”

“I have two issues with that. One, it’s not necessary, and two, what about my truck?”

“One, _necessary_ is a subjective word, and two, I’ll have Alice drop it off after school.”

I was distracted by the casual reminder that she had siblings— strange, pale, beautiful siblings. Special siblings? Special like her?

“Are you going to put up a fuss?” she asked when I didn’t speak.

“Is there any point in resisting?”

I tried to decipher all the layers to her smile, but I didn’t get very far. “It warms my cold heart to see you learning so quickly. This way.”

She dropped her fistful of jacket and turned. The smooth roll of her hips was just as hypnotic as her eyes. I tried to maintain what dignity I could as I got into her car. I wasn’t very successful—I looked like a half-drowned cat and my boots squeaked.

The inside of the Volvo was just as pristine as the outside. Instead of the smell of gasoline and tobacco, there was just a faint perfume. It was almost familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Whatever it was, it smelled amazing.

As the engine purred quietly to life, she played with a few dials, turning the heat on and the music down.

“Is that ‘Clair de Lune’?” I asked.

She glanced at me, surprised. “You’re a fan of Debussy?”

I shrugged. “My mom plays a lot of classical stuff around the house. I only know my favorites.”

“It’s one of my favorites, too.”

“Well, imagine that,” I said. “We have something in common.”

I expected her to laugh, but she only stared out through the rain.

I relaxed against the light gray leather seat, responding automatically to the familiar, soothing melody. Because I was mostly watching her from the corner of my eye, the rain blurred everything outside the window into gray and green smudges. It took me a minute to realize we were driving very fast; the car moved so smoothly I didn’t feel the speed. Only the town flashing by gave it away.

“What’s your mother like?” she asked suddenly.

I glanced over to see her studying me with curious eyes.

“She looks a lot like me, but she’s prettier,” I said. She raised her eyebrows. “I have too much Charlie in me. She’s more outgoing than I am, and braver. She’s irresponsible and slightly eccentric, and she’s a very unpredictable cook. She’s my best friend.” I stopped. Talking about her was making me depressed.

“How old are you, Bella?” Her voice sounded frustrated for some reason I couldn’t imagine. The car stopped, and I realized we were at Charlie’s house already. The rain was so heavy now that I could barely see the house. It was like the car was submerged in a vertical river.

“I’m seventeen,” I responded, a little confused by her tone.

“You don’t seem seventeen.”

Her tone was reproachful; it made me laugh.

“What?” she asked, curious again.

“My mom always says I was born thirty-five years old and that I get more middle-aged every year.” I laughed again, and then sighed. “Well, someone has to be the adult.” I paused for a second. “You don’t seem much like a junior in high school, either.”

She made a face and changed the subject.

“So why did your mother marry Phil?”

I was surprised that she remembered Phil’s name; I was sure I’d only mentioned it once, almost two months ago. It took me a moment to answer.

“My mother… she’s very young for her age. I think Phil makes her feel even younger. At any rate, she’s crazy about him.” I shook my head. The attraction was a mystery to me.

“Do you approve?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I want her to be happy… and he is who she wants.”

“That’s very generous.… I wonder,” she mused.

“What?”

“Would she extend the same courtesy to you, do you think? No matter who your choice was?” Her eyes were suddenly intent, searching mine.

So she knew. For all Edythe went on about my being impossible to read, she was seemingly the only person in Forks who could tell what I was. And instead of recoiling from my obvious infatuation, she was here—staring into my eyes in a way that couldn’t be platonic.

“I— I think so,” I stuttered. “But she’s the parent, after all. It’s a little bit different.” I was sure my mother would be more than accepting if I ever came out to her, but it had never really seemed like the right time.

Edythe’s face relaxed. “No one too scary, then,” she teased.

I grinned back, relieved. “What do you mean by scary? Tattoos and facial piercings?”

“That’s one definition, I suppose.”

“What’s your definition?”

She ignored my question and asked me another. “Do you think _I_ could be scary?” She raised one eyebrow, and the faint trace of a smile lightened her face.

I thought for a moment, wondering whether the truth or a lie would go over better. I decided to go with the truth. “Hmmm… I think you _could_ be, if you wanted to.”

“Are you frightened of me now?” The smile vanished, and her delicate face was suddenly serious.

“No.” But I answered too quickly. The smile returned.

“So, are you going to tell me about your family?” I asked to distract her. “It’s got to be a much more interesting story than mine.”

She was instantly cautious. “What do you want to know?”

“The Cullens adopted you?” I verified.

“Yes.”

I hesitated for a moment. “What happened to your parents?”

“They died many years ago.” Her tone was matter-of-fact.

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t really remember them clearly. Carine and Earnest have been my parents for a long time now.”

“And you love them.” It wasn’t a question. It was obvious in the way she said their names.

“Yes.” She smiled. “I can’t imagine two better people.”

“You’re very lucky.”

“I know I am.”

“And your brother and sister?”

She glanced at the clock on the dashboard.

“My brother and sister, and Jessamine and Rosalie for that matter, are going to be quite upset if they have to stand in the rain waiting for me.”

“Oh, sorry, I guess you have to go.” I didn’t want to get out of the car.

“And you probably want your truck back before Chief Swan gets home, so you don’t have to tell him about the syncopal episode.”

She was good with the medical jargon, but then, her mother was a doctor.

“I’m sure he’s already heard. There are no secrets in Forks,” I grumbled.

Apparently I’d said something funny, but I couldn’t guess what it was, or why there was an edge to her laughter.

“Have fun at the beach,” she said when she was finished. “Good weather for sunbathing.” She gestured to the sheeting rain.

“Won’t I see you tomorrow?”

“No. Emmett and I are starting the weekend early.”

“What are you going to do?” A friend could ask that, right? I hoped the disappointment wasn’t too apparent in my voice.

“We’ll be hiking the Goat Rocks Wilderness, just south of Rainier.”

“Oh, sounds fun.”

She smiled. “Will you do something for me this weekend?” She turned to look me straight in the eyes, utilizing the full power of her hypnotic gaze.

I nodded, helpless.

“Don’t be offended, but you seem to be one of those people who just attract accidents like a magnet. So… try not to fall into the ocean or get run over by anything, all right?” She flashed her crooked smile at me.

“I’ll see what I can do,” I promised.

I jumped out into the rain and ran for the porch. By the time I turned around, the Volvo had disappeared.

“Oh!” I clutched at my jacket pocket, remembering that I’d forgotten to give her my key.

The pocket was empty.

 


	7. Scary Stories

AS I SAT IN MY ROOM, TRYING TO CONCENTRATE ON THE THIRD ACT OF  _Macbeth,_ I was really listening for my truck. I would have thought I’d hear the engine’s roar even over the pounding rain. But when I went to peek out the window again, it was suddenly there.

I wasn’t looking forward to Friday, and it more than lived up to my negative expectations. Of course there were all the fainting comments. Jessica especially seemed to get a kick out of that story. Luckily, Mike had kept his mouth shut, and no one seemed to know about Edythe’s involvement. Jessica did have a lot of questions about yesterday’s lunch, though.

“So what did Edythe Cullen want?” she’d asked in Trig.

“I don’t know.” It was the truth. “She never really got to the point.”

“She looked kind of mad,” Jessica fished.

I shrugged. “Did she?”

“You know, I’ve never seen her sit with anyone but her family before. That was weird.”

“Yeah, weird,” I agreed. Jessica seemed irritated; she flipped her dark curls impatiently—I guessed she’d been hoping to hear something that would make a good story for her to pass on.

The worst part about Friday was that, even though I knew Edythe wasn’t going to be there, I still hoped. When I walked into the cafeteria with Jessica and Mike, I couldn’t keep from looking at her table, where Rosalie, Alice, and Jessamine sat, talking with their heads close together. And I couldn’t stop the gloom that engulfed me as I realized I didn’t know how long I would have to wait before I saw Edythe again.

At my usual table, everyone was full of our plans for the next day. Mike was animated again, putting a lot more trust in the local weatherman than I thought he deserved. I’d have to see his promised sun before I believed it. At least it was warmer today— almost sixty, though it was still wet. Maybe the outing wouldn’t be totally miserable.

I intercepted a few unfriendly glances from Lauren during lunch, which I didn’t really understand until we were all walking out of the room together. I was right behind her, just a foot from her slick, silver-blonde hair, and she was evidently unaware of that.

“I don’t know why _Bella_ ”—she said my name with a sneer—“doesn’t just sit with the Cullens now,” I heard her muttering to Mike. I’d never noticed before what an unpleasant voice she had, and I was surprised now by the malice in it. I really didn’t know her well, not well enough for her to dislike me— or so I would have thought.

“She’s my friend; she sits with us,” Mike whispered back. Loyal, but also a bit territorial. I paused to let Jess and Angela pass me. I didn’t want to hear any more.

That night at dinner, Charlie seemed enthusiastic about my trip to La Push in the morning. I guessed he felt guilty for leaving me home alone on the weekends, but he’d spent too many years building his habits to break them now. And I never minded the alone time.

Of course he knew the names of all the kids going, and their parents, and their great-grandparents, too, probably. He obviously approved. I wondered if he would approve of my plan to ride to Seattle with Edythe. He seemed to like the Cullens a lot. But there was no reason to tell him about it.

“Dad, do you know a place called Goat Rocks or something like that? I think it’s south of Mount Rainier.”

“Yeah, why?”

I shrugged. “Some kids were talking about camping there.”

“It’s not a very good place for camping.” He sounded surprised. “Too many bears. Most people go there during hunting season.”

“Oh,” I murmured. “Maybe I got the name wrong.”

I meant to sleep in, but an unusual brightness woke me. Instead of the same gloomy half-light I’d gotten up to for the past two months, there was a bright, clear yellow streaming through my window. I couldn’t believe it, but there it was— finally— the sun. It was in the wrong place, too low and not as close as it should be, but it was definitely the sun. Clouds still ringed the horizon, but a wide blue patch took up most of the sky. I threw on my clothes quickly, afraid the blue would disappear as soon as I turned my back.

Newton’s Olympic Outfitters was just north of town. I’d seen the store but never stopped there— not having much desire for the supplies required to intentionally stay outdoors over an extended period of time. In the parking lot I recognized Mike’s Suburban and Tyler’s Sentra. As I pulled up next to their vehicles, I saw the group standing around in front of the Suburban. Eric was there, and two other boys I knew from class; I was fairly sure their names were Ben and Conner. Jess was there, flanked by Angela and Lauren. Three other girls stood with them, including one I remembered falling over in Gym on Friday. That one gave me a dirty look as I climbed out of the truck, and then whispered something to Lauren. They laughed loudly, and Lauren shook out her cornsilk hair and eyed me scornfully.

So it was going to be one of _those_ days.

At least Mike was happy to see me.

“You came!” he called, sounding thrilled. “And I promised it would be sunny, didn’t I?”

“I told you I was coming.”

“We’re just waiting for Lee and Samantha… unless you invited someone,” he added.

“Nope,” I lied lightly, hoping I wouldn’t get caught. But also wishing that a miracle would occur, and Edythe would appear. It would be worth getting caught out if it meant I could spend the day with her.

Mike smiled.

“Do you want to ride with me? It’s either that or Lee’s mom’s minivan.”

“Sure.”

His smile was huge. It was so easy to make Mike happy.

“You can have shotgun,” he promised, and I saw Jessica look up at us and then scowl. Not so easy to make Mike and Jessica happy at the same time.

The numbers worked out in my favor, though. Lee brought two extra people, so every space was necessary. I made Jess climb in before me so that she was wedged between Mike and me in the front seat of the Suburban. Mike could have been more gracious about it, but at least Jess seemed appeased.

It was only fifteen miles to La Push from Forks, with gorgeous, dense green forests edging the road most of the way and the wide Quillayute River snaking beneath it twice. I was glad I had the window seat. We’d rolled the windows down— the Suburban was a bit claustrophobic with nine people in it— and I tried to absorb as much sunlight as possible.

I’d been to the beaches around La Push many times during my Forks summers with Charlie, so the mile-long crescent of First Beach was familiar to me. It was still breathtaking. The water was dark gray, even in the sunlight, white-capped and heaving onto the rocky shore. Islands rose out of the steel harbor waters with sheer cliff sides, each with a spiky crown of black firs. The beach had only a thin border of actual sand at the water’s edge; after that it was a million smooth rocks that looked uniformly gray from a distance, but close up were every shade a stone could be: terra-cotta, sea green, lavender, blue gray, dull gold. The tide line was piled with huge driftwood trees, bleached bone white by the salty waves— some piled together against the forest’s edge, and some lying alone just out of reach of the waves.

There was a strong breeze coming off the waves, cool and briny. Pelicans floated on the swells while seagulls and a lone eagle circled above them. The clouds still crowded the edges of the sky, but for now the sun shone warmly in its backdrop of blue.

We trudged through the thick sand down to the beach, Mike leading the way to a circle of driftwood logs that had clearly been used for parties like ours before. There was a fire ring already in place, filled with black ashes. Eric and the boy I thought was named Ben gathered broken branches of driftwood from the driest piles against the forest edge, and soon had a teepee-shaped construction built atop the old cinders.

“Have you ever seen a driftwood fire?” Mike asked me. I was sitting on one of the bleached benches; the other girls clustered, gossiping excitedly, on either side of me. Mike knelt by the fire, holding a cigarette lighter to one of the smaller pieces of kindling.

“No,” I said as he placed the blazing twig carefully against the teepee.

“You’ll like this, then— watch the colors.” He lit another small branch and laid it alongside the first. The flames started to lick quickly up the dry wood.

“It’s blue,” I said in surprise.

“The salt does it. Pretty, isn’t it?” He lit one more piece, placed it where the fire hadn’t yet caught, and then came to sit by me. Luckily, Jess was on his other side. She turned to Mike and started asking him questions about the plan for the day. I watched the strange blue and green flames crackle toward the sky.

After a half hour of chatter, some of the boys wanted to hike to the nearby tide pools, but most of the girls wanted to head up to the one shop in the village for food. I wasn’t sure which side to join. I wasn’t hungry, and I loved the tide pools— I’d loved them since I was just a kid; they were one of the only things I ever looked forward to when I had to come to Forks. On the other hand, I’d also fallen into them a lot. Not a big deal when you’re seven and with your dad. It reminded me suddenly of Edythe— not that she wasn’t always somewhere in my thoughts— and how she’d told me not to fall into the ocean.

Lauren was the one who made my decision for me. She was the loudest voice in the argument, and she wanted food. The group splintered into three pieces— food, hiking, and staying put— with most people following Lauren. I waited until Tyler and Eric had committed to going with her before I got up quietly to join the pro-hiking group. Mike smiled wide when he saw that I was coming.

The hike was short, but I hated to lose the sun in the trees. The green light of the forest was strangely at odds with the adolescent laughter, too murky and menacing to be in harmony with the light banter around me. I had to concentrate on my feet and head, avoiding roots below and branches above, and I soon fell behind. When I broke through the emerald confines of the forest and found the rocky shore again, I was the last one. It was low tide, and a tidal river flowed past us on its way to the sea. Along its pebbled banks, shallow pools that never completely drained were teeming with tiny sea creatures.

I was cautious not to lean too far over the little ocean ponds. The others were reckless, leaping over the rocks, perching precariously on the edges. I found a stable-looking rock on the fringe of one of the largest pools and sat there, totally entertained by the natural aquarium below me. The bouquets of brilliant anemones rippled in the invisible current, hermit crabs scurried around the edges in their spiraled shells, starfish stuck motionless to the rocks and each other, and one small black eel with white racing stripes wove through the bright green weeds, waiting for the sea to return. I was completely absorbed, except for the small part of my mind that was wondering what Edythe was doing now, and trying to imagine what she would be saying if she were here with me.

Suddenly everyone was hungry, and I got up stiffly to follow them back. I tried to keep up better this time through the woods, so naturally I tripped. I got some shallow scrapes on my palms, and the knees of my jeans were stained green, but it could have been worse.

When we got back to First Beach, the group we’d left behind had multiplied. As we got closer I could see the new arrivals, teenagers from the reservation come to socialize. Food was already being passed around, and the hikers hurried to claim a share. Eric introduced us to the new kids as we each entered the driftwood circle. Angela and I were the last to arrive, and, as Eric said our names, I noticed a younger girl sitting on the ground near the fire look up at me with interest. I sat down next to Angela, and Mike joined us with sandwiches and sodas. The boy who looked to be the oldest of the visitors rattled off the names of the seven others with him. All I caught was that one of the girls was also named Jessica, and the girl who noticed me was named Julie.

It was relaxing to sit next to Angela; she was a restful kind of person to be around— she didn’t feel the need to fill every silence with chatter, leaving me free to think while we ate. And what I thought about was how disjointedly time seemed to flow in Forks, passing in a blur at times, with single images standing out more clearly than others. And then, at other times, every second was significant, etched into my mind. I knew exactly what caused the difference, and it was troubling.

During lunch the clouds started to move in, darting in front of the sun momentarily, casting long shadows across the beach, and blackening the waves. As they finished eating, people started to drift away in twos and threes. Some walked down to the edge of the waves, trying to skip rocks across the choppy surface. Others were gathering a second expedition to the tide pools. Mike— with Jessica shadowing him— headed up to the little store. Some of the local kids went with them; others went along on the hike. By the time they all had scattered, I was sitting alone on my driftwood log, with Lauren and Tyler occupying themselves by the CD player someone had brought, and three teenagers from the reservation, including the girl named Julie and the oldest boy, who had acted as spokesperson.

A few minutes after Angela left with the hikers, Julie sauntered over to take her place by my side. She looked fourteen, maybe fifteen, and had long, glossy black hair pulled back with a rubber band at the nape of her neck. Her skin was really beautiful, like coppery silk, her dark eyes were wide -set above her high cheekbones, and her lips were curved like a bow. Altogether, a very pretty face. However, my positive opinion was damaged by the first words out of her mouth.

“You’re Isabella Swan, aren’t you?”

It was like the first day of school all over again.

“Bella,” I sighed.

“Right,” she said, like she’d already known that. “I’m Julie Black.” She held out her hand. “You bought my mom’s truck.”

“Oh,” I said, relieved, shaking her sleek hand. “You’re Bonnie’s daughter. I probably should remember you.”

“No, I’m the youngest of the family— you would remember my older brothers.”

And suddenly I did. “Adam and Aaron.” Charlie and Bonnie had thrown us together a lot during my visits, to keep us busy while they fished. We were all too shy to make much progress as friends. Of course, I’d objected often enough to end the fishing trips by the time I was eleven.

“Adam and Aaron and… Jules, wasn’t it?”

She smiled. “You do remember. No one’s called me that since my brothers left.”

“They aren’t here?” I examined the group at the ocean’s edge, wondering if I would be able to recognize them now.

Jules shook her head. “No, Adam got a scholarship to Washington State, and Aaron married a Samoan surfer— he lives in Hawaii now.”

“Married. Wow.” I was stunned. The twins were only a little over a year older than I was.

“So how do you like the truck?” she asked.

“I love it. It runs great.”

“Yeah, but it’s really slow,” she laughed. “I was so relieved when Charlie bought it. My mom wouldn’t let me work on building another car when we had a perfectly good vehicle right there.”

“It’s not that slow,” I objected.

“Have you tried to go over sixty?”

“No,” I admitted.

“Good. Don’t.” She grinned.

I couldn’t help grinning back. “It does great in a collision,” I offered in my truck’s defense.

“I don’t think a tank could take out that old monster,” she agreed with another laugh.

“So you build cars?” I asked, impressed.

“When I have free time, and parts. You wouldn’t happen to know where I could get my hands on a master cylinder for a 1986 Volkswagen Rabbit?” she added jokingly. She had a pleasant, husky voice.

“Sorry,” I laughed, “I haven’t seen any lately, but I’ll keep my eyes open for you.” As if I knew what that was. She was very easy to talk with.

She flashed a brilliant smile, looking at me in a way I was surprised to recognize. I wasn’t the only one who noticed.

“You know Bella, Julie?” Lauren asked—in what I imagined was a disparaging tone—from across the fire.

“We’ve sort of known each other since I was born,” Jules laughed, smiling at me again.

“How nice.” Lauren didn’t sound like she thought it was nice at all, and her pale eyes narrowed.

Jules raised her eyebrows at Lauren’s tone. “Yes, isn’t it wonderful?”

Her sarcasm seemed to throw Lauren off, but she wasn’t done with me yet.

“Bella, Tyler and I were just saying that it was too bad none of the Cullens could come out today. Didn’t anyone think to invite them?” She looked at me like she knew I’d asked Edythe to come, and thought it was hilarious that she’d turned me down. Only, it hadn’t felt like a rejection in the moment— it’d felt like she’d wanted to come with me, but couldn’t. Had I read her wrong?

My worries were interrupted by a strong, deep voice.

“You mean Dr. Carine Cullen’s family?”

It was the older boy who had first introduced the local kids. He was even older than I’d thought, now that I looked at him closer. He was really closer to a man than a boy.

“Yes, do you know them?” she asked in a patronizing tone, only half-turned toward him.

“The Cullens don’t come here,” he said, and in his clear, forceful voice, it sounded less like an observation and more like… a command. He had ignored her question, but clearly the conversation was over.

Tyler, trying to win back Lauren’s attention, asked her opinion of the CD he held. She was distracted.

I stared at the deep-voiced boy— he stood with a confident, straight posture, looking away toward the dark forest. He’d said that the Cullens didn’t come here, but his tone had implied something more—that they weren’t allowed; they were prohibited. His manner left a strange impression on me that I couldn’t shake.

Jules interrupted my meditation. “So, is Forks driving you insane yet?”

“Oh, I’d say that’s an understatement.” I grimaced. She grinned sympathetically.

I was still turning over the brief comment on the Cullens, and I had a sudden inspiration. It was a stupid plan, but I didn’t have any better ideas. I hoped that I hadn’t somehow misinterpreted Jules’ inviting smile and tomboyish demeanor, or my sure-to-be-pitiful attempts at flirting would go right over her head.

“Do you want to take a walk down the beach with me?” I asked, trying to imitate that way Edythe had of looking up from underneath her eyelashes. It couldn’t have nearly the same effect, I was sure.

Jules looked at Lauren, then back to me with a quick grin. “Yeah, let’s get out of here.”

As we walked north toward the driftwood seawall, the clouds finally closed ranks across the sky. The sun disappeared, the sea turned black, and the temperature started to drop. I shoved my hands deep in the pockets of my jacket.

“Nice friends,” Jules commented when we were far enough from the fire that the clattering of the stones beneath our feet was more than enough to drown out our voices.

“Not mine.”

She laughed. “I could tell.”

“Were those other kids your friends? That one seemed kind of… older.”

“That’s Sam. He’s nineteen, I think. I don’t hang out with him. One of my friends was there before— Quil. I think he went up to the store.”

“I don’t remember which one he was.”

She shrugged. “I didn’t catch many names, either. I only remember yours because you used to pull my hair.”

“I did? I’m so sorry!”

She laughed. “Your face. No— that was just my brothers. But I totally could have convinced you that you were guilty.”

It was easy to laugh with her. “Guess so. Hey, can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

“What did that guy— Sam— what did he mean about the doctor’s family?”

“The Cullens? Oh, they’re not supposed to come onto the reservation.” She looked away, out toward James Island, as she confirmed what I thought I’d heard in Sam’s voice.

“Why not?”

She glanced back at me, biting her lip. “Oops, I’m not supposed to say anything about that.”

“Oh, I won’t tell anyone, I’m just curious.” I tried to make my smile alluring, wondering if I was laying it on too thick.

She smiled back, though, looking allured. Then she lifted one eyebrow and her voice was even huskier than before.

“Do you like scary stories?” she asked ominously.

For one second, I could hear Edythe’s voice clearly in my head. _Do you think I could be scary?_

“How scary are we talking here?”

“You’ll never sleep again,” she promised.

“Well, now I have to hear it.”

She chuckled and looked down, a smile playing around the edges of her lips. I could tell she would try to make this good.

We were near one of the beached logs now, a huge white skeleton with the upended roots all tangled out like a hundred spider legs. Jules climbed up to perch on one of the thicker roots while I sat beneath her on the body of the tree. I tried to seem only interested as I looked at her, not like I was taking any of this seriously.

“I’m ready to be terrified.”

“Do you know any of our old stories, about where we come from— the Quileutes, I mean?” she began.

“Not really,” I admitted.

“There are lots of legends, some of them claiming to date back to the Great Flood—supposedly, the ancient Quileutes tied their canoes to the tops of the tallest trees on the mountain to survive like Noah and the ark.” She smiled, to show me she wasn’t taking this seriously, either. “Another legend claims that we descended from wolves— and that the wolves are our brothers and sisters still. It’s against tribal law to kill them.

“Then there are the stories about the _cold ones_.” Her voice dropped even lower.

“The cold ones?” I asked. Did I look too intrigued now? Could she guess that the word _cold_ would mean something to me?

“Yes. There are stories of the cold ones as old as the wolf legends, and some much more recent. According to legend, my own great-grandmother knew some of them. She was the one who made the treaty that kept them off our land.” She rolled her eyes.

“Your great-grandmother?” I encouraged.

“She was a tribal elder, like my mother. You see, the cold ones are the natural enemies of the wolf— well, not the wolf, really, but the wolves that turn into men and women, like our ancestors. You could call them werewolves, I guess.”

“Werewolves have enemies?”

“Only one.”

I stared at her earnestly, trying to disguise my impatience as entertainment.

“So you see,” Jules continued, “the cold ones are traditionally our enemies. But this pack that came to our territory during my great-grandmother’s time was different. They didn’t hunt the way others of their kind did— they weren’t supposed to be dangerous to the tribe. So my great-grandmother made a truce with them. If they would promise to stay off our lands, we wouldn’t expose them to the pale-faces.” She winked at me.

“If they weren’t dangerous, then why…?”

“There’s always a risk for humans to be around the cold ones, even if they’re civilized like this clan alleged they were. You never know when they might get too hungry to resist.” She deliberately worked a thick edge of menace into her tone.

“What do you mean, ‘civilized’?”

“They claimed that they didn’t hunt humans. They supposedly were somehow able to prey on animals instead.”

I tried to keep my voice casual, but I was pretty sure I failed. “So how does it fit in with the Cullens? Are they like the cold ones your great-grandmother met?”

“No.…” She paused dramatically. “They are the _same_ ones.”

She must have thought the expression on my face meant only that I was engrossed in her story. She smiled, pleased, and continued.

“There are more of them now, two new ones, but the rest are the same. In my great-grandmother’s time they already knew of the leader, Carine. She’d been here and gone before _your_ people had even arrived.” She was fighting another smile, trying to keep the tone serious.

“And what are they?” I finally asked. “What _are_ the cold ones?”

She smiled darkly.

“Blood drinkers,” she replied in a chilling voice. “Your people call them vampires.”

I stared out at the rough surf after she answered, not sure what my face was giving away. _Do you think I could be scary?_ Edythe’s voice repeated in my head.

“You have goose bumps on your neck,” Jules laughed delightedly.

“You’re a good storyteller,” I told her, still staring into the waves.

“Pretty crazy stuff, though, isn’t it? No wonder my mom doesn’t want us to talk about it to anyone.”

I couldn’t control my expression enough to look at her yet. “Don’t worry, I won’t give you away.”

“I guess I just violated the treaty.” She threw her head back and laughed.

“I’ll take it to the grave,” I promised, and then a shiver ran down my spine.

“Seriously, though, don’t say anything to Charlie. He was pretty mad at my mom when he heard that some of us weren’t going to the hospital since Dr. Cullen started working there.”

“I won’t say anything to Charlie, of course not.”

“So, do you think we’re a bunch of superstitious natives or what?” she asked in a playful tone, but with a hint of worry. I still hadn’t looked away from the ocean.

I turned and smiled at her as normally as I could.

“No. I think you’re very good at telling scary stories, though. I still have goose bumps, see?” I yanked back the sleeve of my jacket to show her.

“Cool.” She grinned.

And then we both heard the sound of the beach rocks clattering against each other. Our heads snapped up at the same time to see Mike and Jessica about fifty yards away, walking toward us.

“There you are, Bella,” Mike called in relief, waving his arm over his head.

“Uh, is that your boyfriend?” Jules asked, suddenly doubtful. I was surprised the possessive edge in Mike’s voice was so obvious.

“No, definitely not,” I whispered. I was tremendously grateful to Jules, and eager to make her as happy as possible. I winked at her, carefully turning away from Mike to do so.

She smiled, elated by my inept flirting. “You ever need a break from these friends of yours, let me know.”

“That sounds cool,” I said, and I meant it. I could definitely use a break from pretending to be straight. Between that and the fact that we’d known each other longer, if not well, I already felt more comfortable with her than I did with any of the kids I’d be riding home with.

Mike had reached us now, with Jessica a few paces back, struggling to keep up. Mike looked Jules up and down once, then turned to me in a move that was strangely dismissive of Jules. Jules snorted quietly again.

“Where have you been?” Mike asked, though the answer was right in front of him.

“Jules here was just giving me the guided tour of First Beach.” I smiled at Jules and she grinned back. Again, it was like we had a shared secret. Of course, that was true now, in more than one way.

“Well,” Mike said, carefully reassessing the situation as he watched our camaraderie. “We’re packing up. Looks like it’s going to rain.”

We all glanced up at the glowering sky— the clouds were thick and black and very wet-looking.

“Okay,” I said. “I’m coming.”

“It was nice to see you _again_ ,” Jules emphasized, and I guessed she was messing with Mike just a bit.

“It really was. Next time Charlie comes down to see Bonnie, I’ll come with.”

Her grin stretched across her entire face. “That would be cool.”

“And thanks,” I added in a low voice, not quite casual enough.

She winked at me.

I pulled up my hood as we trudged across the rocks toward the parking lot. A few drops were beginning to fall, making black spots on the stones where they landed. When we got to the Suburban the others were already loading everything back in. I crawled into the backseat by Angela and Tyler, announcing that I’d already had my turn in the shotgun position. Angela just stared out the window at the building storm, and Lauren twisted around in the middle seat to occupy Tyler’s attention, so I was free to lay my head back over the seat, close my eyes, and try very hard not to think.


	8. Nightmare

I TOLD CHARLIE I HAD A LOT OF HOMEWORK TO DO, AND THAT I’D FILLED up at La Push and didn’t want dinner. There was a basketball game on that he was excited about, though of course I couldn’t tell what was special about it, so he wasn’t aware of anything unusual in my face.

Once in my room, I locked the door. I dug through my desk until I found my old headphones, and I plugged them into my little CD player. I picked up a CD that Phil had given to me for Christmas. It was one of his favorite bands, but they were a little heavy for my taste. I popped it into place and lay down on my bed. I put on the headphones, hit Play, and turned up the volume until it hurt my ears. I closed my eyes, and then added a pillow over the top half of my face.

I concentrated only on the music, trying to make out the lyrics, to unravel the complicated drum patterns. By the third time I’d listened through the CD, I knew all the words to the choruses, at least. I was surprised to find that I really did like the band after all, once I got past the blaring noise. I’d have to thank Phil again.

And it worked. The eardrum-shattering beats made it impossible for me to think— which was the whole purpose of the exercise. I listened to the CD again and again, until I was singing along with all the songs, until, finally, I fell asleep.

I opened my eyes to a familiar place. Aware in some corner of my consciousness that I was dreaming, I recognized the green light of the forest. I could hear the waves crashing against the rocks somewhere nearby, and I knew that if I found the ocean, I’d be able to see the sun. So I was trying to follow the sound, but then Jules was there, tugging on my hand, pulling me back toward the blackest part of the forest.

“Jules? What’s wrong?” I asked. Her face was frightened as she yanked on my hand with all her strength, trying to tow me back into the dark.

“Run, Bella, you have to run!” she whispered, terrified.

“This way, Bella!” It was Mike’s voice I heard now, calling from the gloomy heart of the trees, but I couldn’t see him.

“Why?” I asked, still pulling against Jules’s grasp, desperate now to find the sun.

And then Jules dropped my hand— she let out a strange yelp and, suddenly shaking, she fell twitching to the ground. I watched in horror, unable to move.

“Jules!” I yelled, but she was gone. In her place was a big, red-brown wolf with black eyes. The wolf faced away from me, pointing toward the shore, the hair on the back of her shoulders bristling, low growls issuing from between her exposed fangs.

“Bella, run!” Mike cried out again from behind me. But I didn’t turn. I was watching a light, coming toward me from the beach.

And then Edythe stepped out from the trees.

She wore a black dress. It hung all the way to the ground, but exposed her arms to the shoulders and had a deep-cut V for a neckline. Her skin was faintly glowing, and her eyes were flat black. She held up one hand and beckoned me to come to her. Her closely-trimmed nails were painted a red so dark they were almost as black as her dress. Her lips were the same color.

The wolf between us growled.

I took a step forward, toward Edythe. She smiled then, and between her dark lips her teeth were sharp, pointed.

“Trust me,” she purred.

I took another step.

The wolf launched herself across the space between me and the vampire, fangs aiming for the jugular.

“No!” I shouted, wrenching upright out of my bed.

My sudden movement caused the headphones to pull the CD player off the bedside table, and it clattered to the wooden floor.

My light was still on, and I was sitting fully dressed on the bed, with my shoes on. I glanced, disoriented, at the clock on my dresser. It was five-thirty in the morning.

I groaned, fell back, and rolled over onto my face, kicking off my boots. I was too uncomfortable to get anywhere near sleep, though. I rolled back over and unbuttoned my jeans, yanking them off awkwardly as I tried to stay horizontal. I could feel the braid in my hair, an uncomfortable ridge along the back of my skull. I turned onto my side and ripped the rubber band out, quickly combing through the plaits with my fingers. I pulled the pillow back over my eyes.

It was all no use, of course. My subconscious had dredged up exactly the images I’d been trying so hard to avoid. I was going to have to face them now.

 _First things first,_ I thought to myself, glad to put it off as long as possible. I grabbed my bathroom bag.

The shower didn’t last nearly as long as I hoped it would, though. Even taking the time to blow-dry my hair, I was soon out of things to do in the bathroom. Wrapped in a towel, I crossed back to my room. I couldn’t tell if Charlie was still asleep, or if he’d left already. I went to the window, and the cruiser was gone. Early-morning fishing again.

I dressed slowly in yesterday’s jeans and an old sweatshirt, and then made my bed— which was just stalling. I couldn’t put it off any longer. I went to my desk and switched on my old computer.

I hated using the Internet here. My modem belonged in a museum, and my free service really proved that you got what you paid for. Just dialing up took so long that I decided to grab a bowl of cereal while I waited.

I ate slowly, so the last bites were too soggy to finish. I washed the bowl and spoon, then put them away. My feet dragged as I climbed the stairs. I went to pick up my CD player first, then wound up the headphones’ cord, and put them away in the desk drawer. I turned the same CD on, but turned it down till it was just background noise.

With a sigh, I turned to my computer, already feeling stupid before I could even finish typing the word.

_Vampire._

I felt even more stupid looking at it.

The results were difficult to sift through. Most of it was entertainment— movies, TV shows, role-playing games, metal bands.…   There were goth clothes and makeup, Halloween costumes, and convention schedules.

Eventually I found a promising site— Vampires A– Z— and waited impatiently for it to load. The final page was simple and academic-looking, black text on a white background. Two quotes greeted me on the home page:

_Throughout the vast shadowy world of ghosts and demons there is no figure so terrible, no figure so dreaded and abhorred, yet dight with such fearful fascination, as the vampire, who is himself neither ghost nor demon, but yet who partakes the dark natures and possesses the mysterious and terrible qualities of both. — Rev. Montague Summers_

_If there is in this world a well-attested account, it is that of the vampires. Nothing is lacking: official reports, affidavits of well-known people, of surgeons, of priests, of magistrates; the judicial proof is most complete. And with all that, who is there who believes in vampires? — Rousseau_

The rest of the site was an alphabetized listing of all the different myths of vampires found throughout the world. The first I clicked on, the Danag, was a Filipino vampire supposedly responsible for planting taro on the islands long ago. The myth continued that the Danag worked with humans for many years, but the partnership ended one day when a woman cut her finger and a Danag sucked her wound, enjoying the taste so much that it drained her body completely of blood.

I read carefully through the descriptions, looking for anything that sounded familiar, let alone plausible. It seemed that most vampire myths focused on beautiful women as demons and children as victims; they also seemed like excuses created to explain away the high mortality rates for young children, and to give men an excuse for infidelity. Many of the stories were about bodiless spirits and warnings against improper burials. There wasn’t much that sounded like the movies I remembered, and only a very few, like the Hebrew Estrie and the Polish Upier, who were even that interested in drinking blood.

Only three entries really caught my attention: the Romanian Varacolaci, a powerful undead being who could appear as a beautiful, pale-skinned human, the Slovak Nelapsi, a creature so strong and fast it could massacre an entire village in the single hour after midnight, and one other, the Stregoni benefici.

About this last there was only one brief sentence.

_Stregoni benefici: An Italian vampire, said to be on the side of goodness, and a mortal enemy of all evil vampires._

It was a strange relief, that one small entry, the one myth among hundreds that claimed the existence of good vampires.

Overall, though, there was little that coincided with Jules’s story or my own observations. I’d created a catalogue in my mind, and as I’d read I’d compared it with each myth. Beauty, speed, strength, pale skin, eyes that shift color; and then Jules’s criteria: blood drinkers, enemies of the werewolf, cold-skinned, and immortal. There were very few myths that matched even one factor.

And then another problem, one that I’d remembered from the horror movies that I’d seen and that was backed up by today’s reading— vampires couldn’t come out in the daytime, the sun would burn them to a cinder. They slept in coffins all day and came out only at night.

Annoyed, I snapped off the computer’s main power switch, not waiting to shut things down properly. Through my irritation, I felt overwhelming embarrassment. It was all so stupid. I was sitting in my room, researching vampires. What was wrong with me?

I had to get out of the house, but there was nowhere I wanted to go that didn’t involve a three-day drive. I pulled on my boots anyway, unclear where I was headed, and went downstairs. I shrugged into my raincoat without checking the weather and stomped out the door.

Overcast, but not raining yet. I ignored my truck and started east on foot, angling across Charlie’s yard toward the ever-encroaching forest. It didn’t take long till I was deep enough that the house and the road were invisible, and the only sound was the squish of the damp earth under my feet.

There was a thin ribbon of a trail that led through the woods here; it wound deeper and deeper into the forest, mostly east as far as I could tell. It snaked around the spruces and the hemlocks, the yews and the maples. I only vaguely knew the names of the trees around me, and all I knew was thanks to Charlie pointing them out to me from the cruiser window a long time ago. There were many I didn’t know, and others I couldn’t be sure about, because they were so covered in green parasites.

I followed the trail as long as my anger at myself pushed me forward. As that started to fade, I slowed. A few drops of moisture trickled down from the canopy above me, but I couldn’t be certain if it was beginning to rain, or if it was simply pools left over from yesterday, stored high in the leaves above, slowly dripping their way to the ground. A recently fallen tree— I knew it was recent because it wasn’t entirely carpeted in moss— rested against the trunk of one of her sisters, creating a sheltered little bench just a few feet off the trail. I stepped over the ferns and sat down, leaning my hooded head back against the living tree.

This was the wrong place to go. I should have known, but where else was there? The forest was deep green and far too much like the scene in last night’s dream to allow for peace of mind. Now that there was no longer the sound of my soggy footsteps, the silence was piercing. The birds were quiet, too, the drops increasing in frequency, so it must be raining above. The ferns stood higher than my head, now that I was seated, and I knew someone could walk by on the path, three feet away, and not even see me.

Here in the trees it was much easier to believe the absurdities that embarrassed me indoors. Nothing had changed in this forest for thousands of years, and all the old myths and legends seemed much more likely in this ancient green maze than they had in my mundane bedroom.

I forced myself to focus on the two most vital questions I had to answer.

First, I had to decide if it was possible that what Jules had said about the Cullens could be true.

Immediately, my mind responded with a resounding _No_. It was stupid to entertain such ridiculous notions. These were silly stories. Just morbid old legends.

 _But what, then?_ I asked myself. There was no rational explanation for how I had survived the van. I listed again in my head the things I’d observed myself: the inhuman beauty, the impossible speed and strength, the eye color shifting from black to gold and back again, the pale, cold skin. And more— small things that registered slowly— how they never seemed to eat, the disturbing grace with which they moved. And the way _she_ sometimes spoke, with unfamiliar cadences and phrases that better fit the style of a turn-of-the-century novel than that of a twenty-first-century classroom. She had skipped class the day we’d done blood typing. She hadn’t said no to the beach trip till I told her where we were going. She seemed to know what everyone around her was thinking…   except me. She’d told me she was the villain, dangerous.…

Could the Cullens be vampires?

Well, they were _something._ Something outside the boundaries of rational justification was happening in this nothing little town. Whether it was Jules’s cold ones or my own superhero theory, Edythe Cullen was not… human. She was something more.

So then— maybe. That would have to be my answer for now.

And then the most important question of all. What was I going to do about it?

 _If_ Edythe was a vampire— I could hardly make myself think the word— then what should I do? Involving someone else was definitely out. I couldn’t even believe myself; anyone I tried to talk to about it would have me committed.

Only two options seemed practical. The first was to take her advice: to be smart, to avoid her as much as possible. To cancel our plans, and to go back to ignoring her as far as I was able. To pretend there was an impenetrable glass wall between us in the one class where we were forced together. To tell her she was right, and then never talk to her again.

I was gripped with despair as I considered that alternative. It hurt— just the idea— more than it should. More than I felt I could stand. I switched gears, skipping on to the next option.

I could do nothing different. After all, if she was something…   sinister, she’d done nothing to hurt me so far. In fact, I would be a dent in Tyler’s fender if she hadn’t acted so quickly. So quickly, I argued with myself, that it might have been sheer reflexes. But if it was a reflex to save lives, how bad could she be? My head spun in circular questions, no answers.

There was one thing I was sure of, if I was sure of anything. The black-gowned Edythe with the sharp teeth was just the embodiment of the word Jules had said, and not the real Edythe. Even so, when I’d screamed out in terror as the werewolf lunged, it wasn’t fear for the wolf that had me screaming _No_. It was fear that _she_ would be harmed. Even as she called to me with sharp-edged fangs, I feared for _her_.

And I knew in that I had my answer. I didn’t know if there ever was a choice, really. I was already in too deep. Now that I knew— _if_ I knew— what could I do about it? Because when I thought of her, of her voice, her hypnotic eyes, the magnetic way her body pulled mine toward her, I wanted nothing more than to be with her right now. Even if…   but I didn’t want to think the word again. Not here, alone in the silent forest. Not while the rain made it dim as twilight under the canopy and pattered like footsteps across the matted ground. I shivered and jumped up, worried that somehow the path would have disappeared with the rain.

But it was there, winding its way out of the dripping green gloom. I took longer strides now, and I was surprised, as I nearly ran through the trees, at how far I had come. I started to wonder if I was heading out at all, or following the path farther into the forest. Before I could get too panicky, though, I began to see some open spaces through the branches. And then I could hear a car passing on the street, and I was suddenly free, Charlie’s lawn under my feet.

It was just noon when I got back inside. I went upstairs and got dressed for the day, clean jeans and a t-shirt, since I was staying indoors. It didn’t take too much effort to concentrate on my task for the day, a paper on _Macbeth_ that was due Wednesday. I settled into outlining a rough draft, more serene than I’d felt since…   well, since Thursday afternoon, if I was being honest.

That had always been my way, though. Making decisions was the painful part for me, the part I agonized over. But once the decision was made, I just followed through— relieved that the choice was made. Sometimes the relief was mixed with despair, like my decision to come to Forks. But it was still better than wrestling with the alternatives.

This decision was almost too easy to live with. Dangerously easy.

The rest of the day was quiet, productive— I finished my paper before eight. Charlie came home with a large catch, and I made a mental note to pick up a book of recipes for fish while I was in Seattle next week. The spikes of adrenaline I felt whenever I thought of that trip were no different than the ones I’d felt before I’d taken my walk with Jules. They should be different, I thought, but I didn’t know how to make myself feel the right kind of fear.

I slept dreamlessly that night, exhausted from getting up so early. For the second time since arriving in Forks, I woke to the bright yellow light of a sunny day. I staggered to the window, stunned to see that there was hardly a cloud in the sky. I opened the window— surprised when it opened silently, without sticking, though I hadn’t opened it in who knows how many years— and sucked in the relatively dry air. It was nearly warm, and hardly windy at all. My blood drummed in my veins.

Charlie was finishing breakfast when I came downstairs, and he picked up on my mood immediately.

“Nice day out,” he commented.

“Yeah,” I agreed with a grin.

He smiled back, his brown eyes crinkling around the edges. When he smiled big like that, it was easier to see why he and my mother had jumped too quickly into an early marriage. Most of the young romantic he’d been in those days had faded before I’d known him, as the curly brown hair—the same color, if not the same texture, as mine—had dwindled, slowly revealing more and more of the shiny skin of his forehead. But when he smiled, I could see a little of the man who had run away with Renée when she was just two years older than I was now.

I ate breakfast with a smile on my face, watching the dust motes stirring in the sunlight that streamed in the back window. Charlie called out a goodbye, and I heard the cruiser pull away from the house. I hesitated on my way out the door, hand on my rain jacket. It would be tempting fate to leave it home. With a sigh, I folded it over my arm and stepped out into the brightest light I’d seen in months.

By dint of much elbow grease, I was able to get both windows in the truck almost completely rolled down. I was one of the first ones to school; I hadn’t even checked the clock in my hurry to get outside. I parked and headed toward the picnic benches on the south side of the cafeteria. The benches were still damp, so I sat on my jacket, glad to have a use for it. My homework was done, but there were a few Trig problems I wasn’t sure I had right. I took out my book, but halfway through rechecking the first problem my mind was wandering, watching the sunlight play on the red-barked trees. I sketched mindlessly along the margins of my homework. After a few minutes, I realized I’d drawn five pairs of dark eyes staring off the page at me. I scrubbed them out with the eraser.

“Bella!” I heard someone call, and it sounded like Mike. I looked around to see that the school had become populated while I’d been sitting here. Everyone was in t-shirts, some even in shorts though the temperature couldn’t be over sixty. Mike was coming toward me in khaki shorts and a striped Rugby shirt, waving.

“Hey, Mike,” I answered.

He came to sit by me, the tidy spikes of his hair shining golden in the light, a grin stretching across his face. He was so happy to see me, I couldn’t help but feel responsive.

“Great day, isn’t it?”

“My kind of day,” I agreed.

“What did you do yesterday?” His tone was just a bit too proprietary, but I was in too good of a mood to let it get to me now.

“I mostly worked on my essay.” I didn’t add that I was finished with it—no need to sound smug.

He hit his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Oh yeah— that’s due Thursday, right?”

“Um, Wednesday, I think.”

“Wednesday?” His smile disappeared. “That’s not good... What are you writing yours on?”

“Whether Shakespeare’s treatment of the female characters is misogynistic.”

He stared at me like I’d just spoken in pig Latin.

“I guess I’ll have to get to work on that tonight,” he said, deflated. “I was going to ask if you wanted to go out.”

“Oh.” I was thrown. Why couldn’t I ever have a conversation with Mike without it going in this direction?

“Well, we still could go to dinner or something…   and I could work on it later.” He smiled at me hopefully.

“Mike…” I hated being put on the spot. “I don’t think that would be the best idea.”

His face fell. “Why?” he asked, his eyes guarded.

For a moment, I considered blurting out the truth—that I wasn’t interested in boys, that his persistent attempts at courtship were completely misguided, and that I actually might be involved with Edythe Cullen by some miraculous turn of events. But just the thought of admitting all that made my heart rate spike. I didn’t know how Mike would react, and I didn’t want to risk it.

Thankfully, I remembered something better.

“I think… and if you ever repeat what I’m saying right now I will cheerfully beat you to death,” I threatened, “but I think that would hurt Jessica’s feelings.”

He was bewildered, obviously not thinking in _that_ direction at all. “Jessica?”

“Really, Mike, are you _blind_?”

“Oh,” he exhaled— clearly dazed. I took advantage of that to make my escape.

“It’s time for class, and I can’t be late again.” I gathered my books up and stuffed them in my bag.

We walked in silence to building three, his expression distracted. I hoped whatever thoughts he was immersed in were leading him in the right direction.

When I saw Jessica in Trig, she was just as fired up by the sunny day as I was. She, Angela, and Lauren were headed into Port Angeles tonight to go dress shopping for the dance, and she wanted me to come, too, even though I didn’t need one. I was indecisive. It would be nice to get out of town, but Lauren would be there. And who knew what I might be doing tonight.…   But that was definitely the wrong path to let my mind wander down. Of course I was happy to see the sun again. But that wasn’t totally responsible for the euphoric mood I was in, not even close.

So I gave her a maybe, telling her I’d have to talk with Charlie first.

Finally we were on our way to lunch. I was so anxious to see not just Edythe, but all the Cullens, that it was almost painful. I had to compare them with the new suspicions that were plaguing my mind. Maybe, when we were all together in one room, I would be able to feel sure that I was wrong, that there was nothing sinister about them. As I crossed the threshold of the cafeteria, I felt the first tremor of actual fear roll through my stomach. Would they be able to know what I was thinking? And then a different feeling jolted through me— would Edythe be waiting to sit with me again?

As was my routine, I glanced first toward the Cullens’ table. I felt a small rush of panic as I realized it was empty. With dwindling hope, I scoured the rest of the cafeteria, hoping to find her alone, waiting for me. The place was nearly filled— Spanish had run over— but there was no sign of Edythe or any of her family. Just like that, my good mood was reversed.

We were late enough that everyone was already at our table. I vaguely noticed that Mike had saved a seat for Jessica, and that her face lit up in response.

Angela asked a few quiet questions about the _Macbeth_ paper, which I answered as naturally as I could while my mood was spiraling downward. She, too, invited me to go with them tonight, and I agreed now, grasping at any distraction.

What if, somehow, Edythe knew what I’d done this weekend? What if digging deeper into her secrets had triggered her disappearance? What if I’d done this to myself?

I realized I’d been holding on to a last shred of hope when I walked into Biology, saw her empty seat, and felt a new wave of disappointment.

The rest of the day dragged. I couldn’t follow the discussion in Biology, and I didn’t even try to keep up with Coach Clapp’s lecture on the rules of badminton. I was glad to finally leave campus, so I would be free to pout and mope before I went out tonight with Jessica and company. But right after I walked through my front door, the phone rang. It was Jessica, canceling our plans. I tried to sound glad that Mike had asked her out to dinner—I really was relieved that he finally seemed to be catching on—but my enthusiasm sounded false in my own ears. The shopping trip got rescheduled to Tuesday.

Which left me with little in the way of distractions. I put some fish in a marinade and then finished up my new homework, but that only took a half hour. I checked my e-mail and realized I’d been ignoring my mom. She wasn’t happy about it.

_Mom,  
Sorry. I’ve been out. I went to the beach with some friends. And I had to write a paper. _

My excuses were pretty pathetic, so I gave up on that.

_It’s sunny outside today— I know, I’m shocked, too— so I’m going to go outside and soak up as much vitamin D as I can. Love you,  
Bella. _

I had a small collection of my favorite books that I’d brought to Forks. My hand rested for a moment on the shabbiest volume, a complilation of the works of Jane Austen. I considered revisiting it, then changed my mind and grabbed _Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea_ , plus an old quilt from the linen cupboard at the top of the stairs.

Outside, I folded the quilt in half and laid it down in the middle of the sunniest spot in Charlie’s small square yard. I lay on my stomach, crossing my ankles in the air, and flipped through the paperback, waiting for a word or phrase to catch my interest. Usually, a giant squid or narwhal would be adequate, but today I went through the book twice without finding anything intriguing enough to start me reading. I snapped the book shut, frustrated, and rolled over onto my back.

The breeze was still light, but it blew tendrils of my hair around my face, and that tickled a bit. I pulled all my hair over my head, letting it fan out on the quilt above me, and focused again on the heat that touched my eyelids, my cheekbones, my nose, my lips, my forearms, my neck, soaked through my light shirt…

The next thing I was aware of was the sound of Charlie’s cruiser turning onto the bricks of the driveway. I sat up, surprised that the light was gone and I was deep in the shadow of the trees now. I must have fallen asleep. I looked around, still half out of it, with the sudden feeling that I wasn’t alone.

“Charlie?” I asked. But I could hear his door slamming in front of the house.

I jumped up, feeling edgy and also foolish for feeling that way, and grabbed the quilt and my book. I hurried inside to get some oil heating on the stove; thanks to my nap, dinner would be late. Charlie was hanging up his gun belt and stepping out of his boots when I came in.

“Sorry, dinner’s not ready yet— I fell asleep outside.” I stifled a yawn.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I wanted to catch the score on the game, anyway.”

I watched TV with Charlie after dinner, for something to do. There wasn’t anything on I wanted to watch, but he knew I didn’t care about baseball, so he turned it to some mindless sitcom that neither of us enjoyed. He seemed happy, though, to be doing something together. And it felt good, despite my pointless depression, to make him happy.

“Dad,” I said during a commercial, “Jessica and Angela are going to look at dresses for the dance tomorrow night in Port Angeles, and they wanted me to help them choose. So you’ll be on your own.”

“Jessica Stanley?” he asked.

“And Angela Weber.” I sighed as I gave him the details.

He was confused. “But you’re not going to the dance, right?”

“No, Dad, but I’m helping _them_ find dresses—you know, giving them constructive criticism.”

“Well, okay.” He seemed to realized that he was out of his depth with the girly stuff. “It’s a school night, though.”

“We’re leaving right after school, so we won’t be too late. You want me to put something out for your dinner?”

“Bells, I fed myself for seventeen years before you got here,” he reminded me.

“I don’t know how you survived,” I muttered.

Everything felt less gloomy in the morning— it was sunny again— but I tried not to get my hopes up. I dressed for the warmer weather in a deep blue V-neck blouse— something I’d worn in the dead of winter in Phoenix.

I had planned my arrival at school so that I barely had time to make it to class. With a sinking heart, I circled the full lot looking for a space…   and also searching for the silver Volvo that was clearly not there.

It was the same as yesterday— I just couldn’t keep little sprouts of hope from budding in my mind, only to have them squashed painfully as I searched the lunchroom in vain and sat at my empty Biology table. What if she never came back? What if I never saw her again?

The Port Angeles plan was back on again for tonight, and it was all the more welcome because Lauren had other obligations. I was anxious to get out of town so I could stop glancing over my shoulder, hoping to see Edythe appearing out of the blue the way she always did. I committed to being in a good mood so that I wouldn’t ruin Jessica’s or Angela’s enjoyment in the dress hunting. Maybe I could do a little clothes shopping as well. I didn’t want to think that I might be shopping alone in Seattle this weekend. Surely Edythe wouldn’t really cancel without even telling me.

After school, Jessica followed me home in her old white Mercury so that I could ditch my truck. I brushed through my hair quickly when I was inside, feeling a slight lift of excitement as I contemplated getting out of Forks. I left a note for Charlie on the table, switched my scruffy wallet from my school bag to a purse I rarely used, and ran out to join Jessica. We went to Angela’s house next, and she was waiting for us. My excitement increased exponentially as we drove out of the town limits.


	9. Port Angeles

JESS DROVE FASTER THAN THE CHIEF, SO WE MADE IT TO PORT ANGELES by four. It had been a while since I’d had a girls’ night out, and it was invigorating. We listened to whiny rock songs while Jessica jabbered on about the boys we hung out with. Jessica’s dinner with Mike had gone very well, and she was hoping that by Saturday night they would have progressed to the first-kiss stage. I smiled to myself, pleased. Angela was passively happy to be going to the dance, but not really interested in Eric. Jess tried to get her to confess who her type was, but I interrupted with a question about dresses after a bit, to spare her. Angela threw a grateful glance my way.

Port Angeles was a beautiful little tourist trap, much more polished and quaint than Forks. But Jessica and Angela knew it well, so they didn’t plan to waste time on the picturesque boardwalk by the bay. Jess drove straight to the one big department store in town, which was a few streets in from the bay area’s visitor-friendly face.

The dance was billed as semiformal, and we weren’t exactly sure what that meant. Both Jessica and Angela seemed surprised and almost disbelieving when I told them I’d never been to a dance in Phoenix.

“Didn’t you ever go with a boyfriend or something?” Jess asked dubiously as we walked through the front doors of the store.

“Really,” I tried to convince her, not wanting to let this conversation go too far in the wrong direction. “I’ve never dated anyone. I didn’t go out much.”

“Why not?” Jessica demanded.

“Well… no one asked me,” I answered. It was technically true.

She looked skeptical. “People ask you out here,” she reminded me, “and you tell them no.” We were in the juniors’ section now, scanning the racks for dress-up clothes.

“Well, except for Tyler,” Angela amended quietly.

“Excuse me?” I gasped. “What did you say?”

“Tyler told everyone he’s taking you to prom,” Jessica informed me with suspicious eyes.

“He said _what_?” I sounded like I was choking.

“I told you it wasn’t true,” Angela murmured to Jessica.

I was silent, still lost in shock that was quickly turning to irritation. But we had found the dress racks, and now we had work to do.

“That’s why Lauren doesn’t like you,” Jessica giggled while we pawed through the clothes.

I ground my teeth. “Do you think that if I ran him over with my truck he would stop feeling guilty about the accident? That he might give up on making amends and call it even?”

“Maybe,” Jess snickered. “ _If_ that’s why he’s doing this.”

The dress selection wasn’t large, but both of them found a few things to try on. I sat on a low chair just inside the dressing room, by the three-way mirror, trying to control my fuming.

Jess was torn between two— one a long, strapless, basic black number, the other a knee-length electric blue with spaghetti straps. I encouraged her to go with the blue; it played up her blue eyes. Angela chose a pale pink dress that draped around her tall frame nicely and brought out honey tints in her light brown hair. They both looked beautiful. The whole process was much shorter and easier than similar trips I’d taken with Renée at home. I guess there was something to be said for limited choices.

We headed over to shoes and accessories. While they tried things on I merely watched and critiqued, not in the mood to shop for myself, though I did need new shoes. The girls’-night high was wearing off in the wake of my annoyance at Tyler, leaving room for the gloom to move back in.

“Angela?” I began, hesitant, while she was trying on a pair of pink strappy heels— she was happy to at least have a date tall enough that she could wear high heels at all. Jessica had drifted to the jewelry counter and we were alone.

“Yes?” She held her leg out, twisting her ankle to get a better view of the shoe.

I chickened out. “I like those.”

“I think I’ll get them— though they’ll never match anything but the one dress,” she mused.

“Oh, go ahead— they’re on sale,” I encouraged. She smiled, putting the lid back on a box that contained more practical-looking off-white shoes.

I tried again. “Um, Angela…” She looked up curiously.

“Is it normal for the… Cullens”— I kept my eyes on the shoes—“ to be out of school a lot?” I failed miserably in my attempt to sound nonchalant.

“Yes, when the weather is good they go backpacking all the time— even the doctor. They’re all real outdoorsy,” she told me quietly, examining her shoes, too. She didn’t ask one question, let alone the hundreds that Jessica would have unleashed. I was beginning to really like Angela. I felt like I could have come out to her right then and there, and she would have been totally cool with it. But I let the subject drop as Jessica returned to show us the rhinestone jewelry she’d found to match her silver shoes.

We planned to go to dinner at a little Italian restaurant on the boardwalk, but the dress shopping hadn’t taken as long as we’d expected. Jess and Angela were going to take their clothes back to the car and then walk down to the bay. I told them I would meet them at the restaurant in an hour— I wanted to look for a bookstore. They were both willing to come with me, but I encouraged them to go have fun— they didn’t know how preoccupied I could get when surrounded by books; it was something I preferred to do alone. They walked off to the car chattering happily, and I headed in the direction Jess pointed out.

I had no trouble finding the bookstore, but it wasn’t what I was looking for. The windows were full of crystals, dream-catchers, and books about spiritual healing. I didn’t even go inside. Through the glass I could see a middle-aged woman with long, gray hair worn straight down her back, clad in a dress right out of the sixties, smiling welcomingly from behind the counter. I decided that was one conversation I could skip. There had to be a normal bookstore in town.

I wandered up another street, and then found myself on an angled byway that confused me. I hoped I was heading toward downtown again. I knew I should be paying more attention, but I was trying so hard not to think about Edythe, and what Angela had said… and more than anything trying to beat down my hopes for Saturday. I looked up and saw someone’s silver Volvo parked along the street— not a sedan, this was an SUV, but still— and suddenly I was mad. Were all vampires this unreliable?

I trudged off in what I _thought_ was a northeasterly direction, heading for some glass-fronted buildings that looked promising, but when I got to them, it was just a vacuum repair shop— closed— and a vacant space. I still had too much time to go looking for Jess and Angela yet, and I definitely needed to get my mood in hand before I met back up with them. I ran my fingers through my hair a couple of times and took some deep breaths before I continued around the corner.

It was a wrong turn— just leading around to a side alley where the dumpsters were. But it wasn’t empty. Staring at the huddled circle of people, I tripped on the curb and staggered forward noisily. Six faces turned in my direction. There were four men and two women. One of the women and two of the men quickly turned their backs to me, shoving their hands in their pockets, and I had the impression that they were hiding the things they’d been holding. The other woman had dark black hair, and she looked strangely familiar as she glared in my direction. But I didn’t stop to figure out how I knew her. When one of the men had spun around, I’d gotten a quick glimpse of what looked a lot like a gun stuffed into the back of his jeans.

I started walking forward, crossing the mouth of the alley and heading on to the next street, like I hadn’t noticed them there. Just as I was out of view, I heard a voice whisper behind me, but I couldn’t make out the words.

There was no one else on the empty street. I was farther off the main road than I’d realized. Picking up the pace, I watched the pavement so I wouldn’t trip again.

I found myself on a sidewalk leading past the backs of several gray warehouses, each with large bay doors for unloading trucks, padlocked for the night. The south side of the street had no sidewalk, only a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire protecting some kind of engine parts storage yard. I’d wandered far past the part of Port Angeles that I, as a guest, was supposed to see. It was getting dark now— the clouds were back and piling up on the western horizon, creating an early sunset. I’d left my jacket in the car, and a sharp wind made me cross my arms tightly across my chest. A single van passed me, and then the road was empty.

“Hey,” a woman’s menacing voice called from behind me.

I looked back, and it was the woman I’d seen before, the familiar one. Behind her were two of the men from the alley— a tall bald guy and the shorter man who I thought might be the one who’d had the gun.

“Hello,” I mumbled, a knee-jerk reaction. She was looking straight at me. “I’m sorry, do you mean me?”

“ _Sorry_?” she repeated. They were still walking toward me, and I backed away, toward the south side of the road. “Is that your favorite word or something?”

“I— I’m…   sorry. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She pursed her lips— they were painted a dark, sticky red— and suddenly I knew where I’d seen her before. She was with the guy I’d knocked with my bag when I first arrived in Port Angeles. I looked at the shorter guy, and sure enough, I could see the tops of the tattoos on either side of his neck.

“You didn’t see anything back there, did you?” the woman asked.

“See anything? No. No, I didn’t see anything.”

My heel caught on something as I backed away, and I started to wobble. I threw my arms out, trying to balance, and the taller man, the one I’d never seen before, reacted.

He was pointing a handgun at me.

I’d thought it was the shorter guy who’d had the gun. Maybe they all had guns.

“Hey, hey,” I said, holding my hands higher so he could see they were empty. “I-is it money you want? There’s not much in my wallet, but you’re welcome to it. Please.” I kept edging away until my back ran into the chain-link fence.

“You think I’m stupid?” the woman asked. “I saw you with your cop friend. You gonna run and tell him what you saw?”

“What? That was my dad,” I said, and my voice broke.

She laughed. “Oh, so you’re a baby pig?”

“I told you, I didn’t see anything. I’ll get out of your way now.…” I started sliding along the fence.

“Stop.”

It was the bald man, still pointing the gun. I froze.

“What are you doing?” the short guy said to him. His voice was low, but the street was very quiet, and I could hear him easily.

“I don’t believe her,” the tall one said.

The woman smiled. “How’s that pirate song go? Dead girls tell no tales.”

“What?” I croaked. “No, look, that’s— that’s not necessary. I’m not telling any tales. There’s nothing to tell.”

“That’s right,” she agreed. She looked up at the tall man and nodded.

“We need to keep this quiet,” the short one muttered, and he bent to grab a broken piece of pipe from the gutter. “Put the gun away.”

As soon as the gun was down, I was going to bolt, and the bald guy seemed to know that. He hesitated while the tattooed one started toward me.

Zigzag, that was what my dad had told me once. It was hard to hit a moving target, especially one that wasn’t moving in a straight line. It would help if I weren’t doomed to trip over something. Just once, let me be sure on my feet. I could do that once, right? Just once, when my life depended on it?

How much would a nonfatal bullet wound hurt? Would I be able to keep running through the pain? I hoped so.

I tried to unlock my knees. The man with the pipe was only a few paces away from me now.

A shrill squeal froze him in place. We all stared up as the noise turned piercing.

Headlights flew around the corner and then barreled right at me. The car was just inches from hitting the tattooed guy before he jumped out of the way. The chain-link rattled when he rammed into it. I turned to run, but the car unexpectedly fishtailed around, skidding to a stop with the passenger door flying open just a few feet from me.

“Get in,” a furious voice commanded.

I dove into the Volvo’s dark interior and slammed the door shut behind me, not even questioning how she’d come to be here. It was amazing how instantaneously the choking fear vanished, amazing how suddenly the feeling of security washed over me—even before I was off the street—as soon as I heard her voice.

“Keep your head _down_ ,” she ordered, and I heard the driver’s side door open.

I reached out blindly toward the sound of her voice, and my hand caught her slim, cold arm. She froze when I touched her. There was no give, though my fingers wrapped tight around the leather of her jacket.

“What are you _doing_?” I demanded. “Drive!”

My eyes were adjusting, and I could just make out her eyes in the reflected glow of the headlights. First they looked at my hand gripping her arm, then they narrowed and glared out the windshield toward where the man and the woman must be watching, evaluating. They could shoot at any second.

“Give me just a minute here, Bella.” I could tell her teeth were clenched together.

I knew she would have no problem breaking free of my grasp, but she seemed to be waiting for me to let her go. That wasn’t going to happen.

“Don’t go out there,” I said quietly. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Her eyes glared forward for another half-second, and then her door slammed shut and we were reversing at what felt like about sixty.

“Fine,” she huffed.

The car spun in a tight arc as we raced backward around a corner, and then suddenly we were speeding forward.

“Put on your seat belt,” she told me.

I had to drop her arm to obey, but that was probably a good idea anyway. Still…   I was sad to let go.

The snap as the belt connected was loud in the darkness.

She took a sharp left, then blew through several stop signs without a pause.

But I felt oddly at ease, and, for the moment, totally unconcerned about where we were going. I stared at her face— lit only by the dim dashboard lights— and felt a profound relief that went beyond my sudden deliverance. She was here. She was real. I studied her flawless features in the limited light, waiting for my breath to return to normal, until it occurred to me that her expression was murderously angry.

“Are you okay?” I asked, surprised by how hoarse my voice was.

“No,” she said curtly, and her tone was livid.

I waited in silence, watching her face while her blazing eyes glared straight ahead. The car came to a sudden, screeching stop. I glanced around, but it was too dark to see anything besides the vague outline of dark trees crowding the roadside. We weren’t in town anymore.

“Bella?” she asked, her voice tight, controlled.

“Yes?” My voice was still rough. I tried to clear my throat quietly.

“Are you all right?” She still didn’t look at me, but the fury was plain on her face.

“Yes,” I croaked softly. “Are you?”

She looked at me then, with a kind of irritated disbelief. “Of course I’m all right.”

“Good,” I said. “Um, can I ask why you’re so mad? Did I do something?”

She exhaled in a sudden gust. “ _No_ , Bella.”

“Sorry.”

She gave me another disbelieving look and then shook her head. “Do you think you would be all right if I left you here in the car for just a few—”

Before she could finish, I reached out to grab her hand where it rested on the gearshift. She reacted by freezing again; she didn’t pull her hand away.

It was the first time I’d really touched her skin, when it wasn’t accidental and just for a fraction of a second. Though her hand was as cold as I expected, my hand seemed to burn from the contact. Her skin was so smooth.

“What’s wrong?” My voice came out in a whisper.

She glared at me, and like before, it was as if she were waiting for me to let go instead of just yanking free like she could easily have done.

After a moment, she closed her eyes.

“Sometimes I have a problem with my temper, Bella.” She was whispering, too. “But it _wouldn’t_ be helpful for me to turn around and hunt down those…” She didn’t finish her sentence, looking away, struggling for a moment to control her anger again. “At least,” she continued, “that’s what I’m trying to convince myself.”

“Oh.” The word seemed in adequate, but I couldn’t think of a better response.

“Just give me a moment,” she said.

I was okay with that. I kept my hand lightly on hers, taking advantage of her closed eyes to stare openly. Slowly, the tension in her face started to relax until it was smooth and blank as a statue. A beautiful statue, carved by an artistic genius. Aphrodite, maybe. The goddess of beauty.

There was that faint fragrance in the car again— something elusive that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

Then her eyes opened, and she looked slowly down at my hand.

“Do you… want me to let go?” I asked.

Her voice was careful. “I think that might be for the best.”

“You’re not going anywhere?” I checked.

“I suppose not, if you’re that opposed.”

Unwillingly, I pulled my hand from hers. It felt like I’d been holding a handful of ice cubes.

“Better?” I asked.

She took a deep breath. “Not really.”

“What is it, Edythe? What’s wrong?”

She almost smiled, but there was no humor in her eyes. “Sometimes it’s hard for me to forgive easily when someone… offends me.”

“Did I—”

“Stop, Bella,” she said before I could even get the second word fully out. “I’m not talking about you.” She looked up at me with her eyes wide. “Do you realize that they were serious? That they were actually going to _kill_ you?”

“Yeah, I sort of figured they were going to try.”

“It’s completely ridiculous!” It seemed like she was working herself up again. “Who gets murdered in _Port Angeles_? What _is_ it with you, Bella? Why does everything deadly come looking for _you_?”

I blinked. “I…   I have no answer for that.”

She tilted her head to one side and pursed her lips, exhaling through her nose. “So I’m not allowed to go teach those thugs a lesson in manners?”

“Um, no. Please?”

She sighed a long, slow sigh, and her eyes closed again. “How disagreeable.”

We sat in silence for a moment while I tried to think of something to say that would make up for… disappointing her? That was what it seemed like— that she was disappointed I was asking her not to go looking for multiple armed gangsters who had…   offended her by threatening me. It didn’t make very much sense— and even less so when you factored in that she had asked me to stay in the car. She was planning to go on foot? We’d driven miles away.

For the first time since I’d seen her tonight, the word Jules had said popped into my mind.

Her eyes opened at the same moment, and I wondered if she’d somehow known what I was thinking. But she just looked at the clock and sighed again.

“Your friends must be worried about you,” she said.

It was past six-thirty. I was sure she was right.

Without another word, she started the engine and spun the car around. Then we were speeding back toward town. We were under the streetlights in no time at all, still going too fast, weaving easily through the cars slowly cruising the boardwalk. She parallel parked against the curb in a space I would have thought much too small for the Volvo, but she slid in effortlessly with one try. I looked out the window to see the lights of La Bella Italia. Jess and Angela were just leaving, pacing away from us.

“How did you know where…?” I started, but then I just shook my head. I heard the door open and turned to see her getting out.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m taking you to dinner.” She smiled slightly, but her eyes were hard. She stepped out of the car and slammed the door. I fumbled with my seat belt, and then hurried to get out of the car as well. She was waiting for me on the sidewalk.

She spoke before I could. “Go stop Jessica and Angela before I have to track them down, too. I don’t think I could restrain myself if I ran into your other friends again.”

I shivered at the threat in her voice.

“Jess! Angela!” I yelled after them, waving when they turned. They rushed back, the pronounced relief on both their faces turning to surprise as they saw who I was standing next to. They hesitated a few feet from us.

“Where have you been?” Jessica’s voice was suspicious.

“I got lost,” I admitted sheepishly. “And then I ran into Edythe.” I gestured toward her.

She smiled, shaking her long hair back from her face. Jessica’s eyes went wide.

“Oh, hi… Edythe,” Angela said. “Um, sorry, Bella, we already ate while we were waiting,” she confessed.

“That’s fine—I’m not that hungry.” I shrugged.

“I think you should eat something,” Edythe said quietly. She looked at Jessica and spoke slightly louder. “Do you mind if I drive Bella home tonight? That way you won’t have to wait while we have dinner.”

“Uh, no problem, I guess…” Jessica bit her lip, trying to figure out from my expression whether that was what I wanted. I smiled at her. I wanted nothing more than to be alone with my perpetual savior. There were so many questions that I couldn’t bombard her with till we were by ourselves.

“Okay.” Angela was quicker than Jessica. “See you tomorrow, Bella… Edythe.” She grabbed Jessica’s hand and pulled her toward the car, which I could see a little ways away, parked across First Street. As they got in, Jess turned and waved, her face eager with curiosity. I waved back, waiting for them to drive away before I turned to face Edythe.

“Did you really want dinner?” I asked her.

She looked at me questioningly. Was she thinking what I was thinking— that I’d never actually seen her eat anything?

“I thought you might,” she finally said.

“I’m good,” I told her.

“If you’d rather go home…”

“No, no,” I said too quickly. “I can do dinner. I just meant… it doesn’t have to be that. Whatever you’d like.”

Edythe walked to the door of the restaurant and held it open.

My palms started to sweat a little. Neither of us had said the word, but this was a real date. I’d never really been on one before. I’d gotten roped into some group things back in Phoenix, but I obviously had no interest in any of the boys I’d been set up with. This was different. This was who I really was.

She smiled at me as I walked past, and my heart skipped a beat.

The restaurant wasn’t crowded— this was the off-season in Port Angeles. The host was a meticulously groomed man a few years older than me. When he saw Edythe, his eyes bugged out for a moment before he got control of his expression. Then it was his smarmiest smile and a goofy deep bow, all for her. I was fairly sure he didn’t even notice I was standing there next to her.

“What can I do for you?” he asked as he straightened up, still looking only at her.

“A table for two, please.”

For the first time, he seemed to realize I was there. The look he gave me was quick and disinterested. His eyes shifted back to her immediately, not that I could blame him for that. Obviously, I looked utterly mundane next to her.

“Of course, er, _mademoiselles_.” He grabbed two leather folders and gestured for Edythe to follow. I rolled my eyes. _Signorina_ was probably what he’d been looking for.

He led us to a four-top in the middle of the most crowded part of the dining room. I reached for a chair, but Edythe shook her head at me.

“Perhaps something more private?” she said quietly to the host. It looked like she brushed the top of his hand with her fingers, which I already knew was unlike her— she didn’t touch people if she could help it— but then I saw him slide that hand to a pocket inside his suit coat, and I realized that she must have given him a tip. I’d never seen anyone refuse a table like that except in old movies.

“Of course,” the host said, sounding as surprised as I was. He led us around a partition to a small ring of booths, all of them empty. “How is this?”

“Perfect.” She flashed her gleaming smile, dazing him momentarily.

“Ah”—he shook his head, blinking—“your server will be right out.” He slowly turned and walked unsteadily back toward the main floor, our menus still in the crook of his arm.

Edythe slid into one side of the closest booth, sitting close to the edge so that my only option was to sit facing her with the length of the table between us. After a second of hesitation, I sat, too.

Something thudded a couple of times on the other side of the partition, like the sound of someone tripping over his own feet and then recovering. It was a sound I was familiar with.

“You really shouldn’t do that to people.”

She stared at me, surprised. “Do what?”

“Dazzle them like that. That guy could hurt himself trying to get back to the door.”

She half-smiled, puzzled.

“Oh, come on,” I said dubiously. “You _have_ to know the effect you have on people.”

“I suppose I can think of a few effects.…” Her expression went dark for a tiny second, but then it cleared. “But no one’s ever accused me of _dazzling_ before.”

“You haven’t noticed? Do you think everybody gets their way so easily?”

She tilted her head to the side, ignoring my question. “Do I dazzle _you_?”

I felt the heat rising to my cheeks. “Frequently.”

And then our server arrived with an expectant expression, which quickly shifted to awe. Whatever the host had told him, it had been an understatement.

“Hello,” he said, surprise making his voice monotone as he mechanically recited his lines. “My name is Sal, and I’ll be taking care of you tonight. What can I get you to drink?” Like the host’s, his eyes never strayed from her face.

“Bella?” she prompted.

“Um, a Coke?”

“Two Cokes,” she told him, and, almost like an experiment, she smiled a wide, dimpled smile right into his face.

He actually wobbled, like he was going to keel over.

She pressed her lips together, trying not to laugh. The waiter shook his head and blinked, trying to reorient. I watched, not without a degree of sympathy. I could relate.

“And a menu?” she added when he didn’t move.

“Yes, of course, I’ll be right back with that.” He was still shaking his head as he walked out of sight.

“You’ve seriously never noticed that before?” I asked her.

“It’s been a while since I cared what anyone thought about me,” she said. “And I don’t usually smile so much.”

I grinned. “Probably safer that way— for everyone.”

“Everyone but you. Shall we talk about what happened tonight?”

“What?”

“Your near-death experience? Or did you already forget?”

“Oh.” Actually, I had.

She frowned. “How do you feel?”

“What do you mean?” I hoped she wouldn’t turn on her hypnotic eyes and make me tell the truth, because what I felt right now was…   euphoria. She was right here, with me— she _wanted_ to be. I’d gotten to touch her hand, and I likely had a few hours ahead to spend with her, since she’d promised to drive me home. I’d never felt so happy and so off-balance at the same time.

“Are you cold, dizzy, sick…?”

The way she listed the words reminded me of a doctor’s exam. I didn’t feel cold or sick…   or dizzy in the medical sense. “Should I?”

She laughed. “I’m wondering if you’re going to go into shock,” she admitted. “I’ve seen it happen with less provocation.”

“Oh. No, I don’t think that’s going to happen,” I said. “I’ve always been very good at repressing unpleasant things.”

“Just the same, I’ll feel better when you have some food in you.”

On cue, the waiter appeared with our drinks and a basket of breadsticks. He stood with his back to me while he placed them on the table, then handed Edythe a menu. Done with her experiments, she didn’t so much as look at him this time. She just pushed the menu across the table to me.

He cleared his throat nervously. “There are a few specials. Um, we have a mushroom ravioli and—”

“That sounds good,” I interrupted; I didn’t care what I got— food was the last thing on my mind. “I’ll have that.” I spoke a little louder than necessary, but I wasn’t sure he really knew I was sitting here.

He finally threw a surprised glance my way, and then his attention was back to her.

“And for you…?”

“That’s all we need. Thank you.”

Of course.

He waited for a second, hoping for another smile, I thought. A glutton for punishment. When Edythe kept her eyes on me, he gave up and walked away.

“Drink,” Edythe said.

I took a sip obediently, and then drank more deeply, surprised to find that I was actually quite thirsty. I’d finished the entire glass before I knew it, and she slid her glass toward me.

“No, I’m fine,” I told her.

“ _I’m_ not going to drink it,” she said, as though it were utterly obvious.

“Right,” I said. And, because I _was_ still thirsty, I downed hers, too.

“Thanks,” I muttered, while the word I didn’t want to think about swirled around my head again. The cold from the soda was radiating through my chest, and I shivered.

“Are you cold?” she asked, serious now. Like a doctor again.

“It’s just the Coke,” I explained, fighting another shiver.

“Don’t you have a jacket?”

“Yeah.” Automatically, I patted the empty seat next to me. “Oh— I left it in Jessica’s car,” I realized.

Edythe started unwinding a bone-colored scarf from around her neck. I realized that I’d never once really noticed what she was wearing— not just tonight, but ever. The only thing I could remember was the black gown from my nightmare.…   But though I hadn’t processed the particulars, I knew that in reality she always wore light colors. Like tonight— under the scarf she had on a pale gray leather jacket, cut short like motorcycle gear, and a thin white turtleneck sweater. It fit her snugly, emphasizing the curves of her body. Then I thought of the deep V of the black dream gown again, and that was a mistake. A patch of warmth started to bloom on the side of my neck.

She handed me the scarf, interrupting my ogling.

“Thanks,” I said again. I started wrapping it around my neck— it was very soft, and not at all warm, the way it should be after coming off someone’s body. I’d never worn a scarf that I could remember, so I just wound it in a circle until I ran out of fabric. At least it would cover the red on my neck. Maybe I _should_ own a scarf.

This one smelled amazing, and familiar. I realized this was a hint of the fragrance from the car. It must be her.

“Did I do it right?” I asked her. The soft knit was already warming to my skin, and it did help.

“It suits you,” she said, laughing. “Actually, I stole that scarf from Alice.”

“Do you, uh, steal a lot of things from her?”

She shrugged. “She has the best taste.”

“You never told me about your family. We ran out of time the other day.” Was it only last Thursday? It seemed like a lot longer.

She pushed the basket of breadsticks toward me.

“Really, I’m not going into shock,” I protested.

“Humor me?” she asked, and I couldn’t say no to those eyes.

Reluctantly, I picked up a breadstick and began nibbling on the end. I wondered when it would be okay to start questioning her.

“Your shirt—that color blue looks lovely with your skin,” she said, glancing down at my V-neck blouse. I was surprised; I looked down, flushing, of course.

“You keep changing the subject,” I muttered as I chewed.

“I don’t know how you can be so blasé about this,” she said. “You don’t even look shaken. A normal person—” She shook her head. “But then you’re not so normal, are you?”

I swallowed. “Um, I think I’m pretty normal.”

“Everyone thinks that about themselves.”

“Do you think that about yourself?” I challenged.

She pursed her lips.

I frowned. “Do you ever consider answering any of my questions, or is that not even on the table?”

“It depends on the question.”

“So tell me one I’m allowed to ask.”

She was still thinking about that when the waiter came around the partition with my food. I realized we’d been unconsciously leaning toward each other across the table, because we both straightened up as he approached. He set the dish in front of me— it looked pretty good— and turned quickly to Edythe.

“Did you change your mind?” he asked. “Isn’t there anything I can get you?” I didn’t think I was imagining the double meaning in his offer.

“Some more soda would be nice,” she said, gesturing to the empty glasses without looking away from me.

The waiter stared at me now, and I could tell he was wondering why Edythe was looking at me that way. Well, it was a mystery to me, too.

He grabbed the glasses and walked away.

“I imagine you have a lot of questions for me,” Edythe murmured.

“Just a couple thousand,” I said.

“I’m sure.… Can I ask you one first? Is that unfair?”

Did that mean she was going to answer mine? I nodded eagerly. “What do you want to know?”

She stared down at the table now, her eyes hidden under her black lashes. Her hair fell forward, shielding more of her face.

The words weren’t much more than a whisper. “We spoke before, about how you were… trying to figure out what I am. I was just wondering if you’d made any more progress with that.”

I didn’t answer, and finally she looked up. I was glad for the scarf again, though it couldn’t hide the red I could feel creeping up into my face now.

What could I say? Had I made progress? Or just stumbled into another theory even more stupid than radioactive spiders? How could I say that word out loud, the one I’d been trying not to think all night?

I don’t know what my face must have looked like, but her expression suddenly softened.

“It’s that bad, then?” she asked.

“Can I— can we not talk about it here?” I glanced at the thin partition that separated us from the rest of the restaurant.

“Very bad,” she murmured, half to herself. There was something very sad and… almost _old_ in her eyes. Tired, defeated. It hurt me in a strange way to see her unhappy.

“Well,” I said, trying to make my voice lighter. “Actually, if I answer your question first, I know you won’t answer mine. You never do. So…   you first.”

Her face relaxed. “An exchange, then?”

“Yes.”

The waiter returned with the Cokes. He set them on the table without a word this time and disappeared. I wondered if he could feel the tension as strongly as I could.

“I suppose we can try that,” Edythe murmured. “But no promises.”

“Okay.…” I started with the easy one. “So what brings you to Port Angeles tonight?”

She looked down, folding her hands carefully on the empty table in front of her. Her eyes flickered up at me from under her thick lashes, the hint of a smirk on her face.

“Next,” she said.

“But that’s the easiest one!”

She shrugged. “Next?”

I looked down, frustrated. I unrolled my silverware, picked up my fork, and carefully speared a ravioli. I put it in my mouth slowly, still looking down, chewing while I thought. The mushrooms were good. I swallowed and took a sip of Coke before I looked up.

“Okay, then.” I stared at her, and continued slowly. “Let’s say, hypothetically, that… someone… could know what people are thinking, read minds, you know— with just a few exceptions.” It sounded so stupid. There was no way, if she wouldn’t comment on the first one…

But then she looked at me calmly and said, “Just _one_ exception. Hypothetically.”

It took me a minute to recover from that. She waited patiently.

“Okay.” I worked to sound casual. “Just one exception, then. How does that work? What are the limitations? How would… that someone… find someone else at exactly the right time? How would she even know I was in trouble?” My convoluted questions weren’t making any sense by the end.

“Hypothetically?” she asked.

“Right.”

“Well, if… that someone—”

“Call her _Jane_ ,” I suggested.

Edythe smiled wryly. “If Jane had been paying better attention, the timing wouldn’t have needed to be quite so exact.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m still not over how this could happen at all. How does anyone get into so much trouble, so consistently, and in such unlikely places? You would have devastated Port Angeles’s crime rate statistics for a decade, you know.”

“We were speaking of a hypothetical case,” I reminded her coolly.

She laughed at me, her eyes warm.

“Yes, we were,” she agreed. “What should we call you? ‘Jean’?”

“How did you know?” I asked, unable to curb my intensity. I realized I was leaning toward her again.

She locked eyes with me, torn by some internal dilemma, and I guessed she was wrestling against the desire to simply tell me the truth.

“You can trust me, you know,” I murmured. I reached forward, without thinking, to put my hand on top of hers. But she slid them back an inch, so I let my hand fall empty to the table.

“I don’t know if I have a choice anymore.” Her voice was almost a whisper. “You’re much more observant than I gave you credit for.”

“Please?” I asked.

She hesitated one more second, and then it came out in a rush.

“I followed you to Port Angeles. I’ve never tried to keep a specific person alive before, and it’s much more troublesome than I would have believed. But that’s probably just because it’s you. Ordinary people seem to make it through the day without so many catastrophes. I was wrong before, when I said you were a magnet for accidents. That’s not a broad enough classification. You are a magnet for _trouble_. If there is anything dangerous within a ten-mile radius, it will invariably find you.”

I wondered if it should bother me that she was following me; instead I felt a strange surge of pleasure. She was here for _me_. She stared, waiting for me to react.

I thought about what she’d said— tonight, and before.… _Do you think I could be scary?_

“You put yourself into that category, don’t you?” I guessed.

Her face turned hard, expressionless. “Unequivocally.”

I stretched across the table again, ignoring her when she pulled back slightly once more, and touched the back of her hand shyly with my fingertips. She kept them very still. It made them feel like stone— cold, hard, and now motionless. I thought of the statue again.

“That’s twice now,” I said. “Thank you.”

She just stared at me, her mouth twitching into a frown.

I tried to ease the tension, make a joke. “I mean, did you ever think that maybe my number was up the first time, with the van, and that you’ve been interfering with fate?”

My joke fell flat. Her frown deepened.

“Edythe?”

She angled her face down again, her hair falling across her cheeks, and I could barely hear her answer.

“That wasn’t the first time,” she said. “Your number was up the first day I met you. It’s not twice you’ve almost died, it’s three times. The first time I saved you… it was from myself.”

As clearly as if I were back in my first Biology class, I could see Edythe’s murderous black glare. I heard again the phrase that had run through my head in that moment: _If looks could kill…_

“You remember?” she asked. She stared at me now, her angelic face very serious. “You understand?”

“Yes.” I was calm.

“And yet here you sit.” There was a trace of disbelief in her voice; she raised one eyebrow.

“Yes, here I sit… because of you.” I paused. “Because somehow you knew how to find me today…?” I prompted.

She glared at me for a moment, like she was willing me to be angry, too. When that didn’t work, she shook her head and huffed a sigh.

“I was keeping tabs on Jessica’s thoughts,” she said, like it was the most normal thing in the world. “Not carefully— like I said, it’s not just anybody who could get themselves murdered in Port Angeles. At first I didn’t notice when you set off on your own. Then, when I realized that you weren’t with her anymore, I drove around looking for someone who had seen you. I found the bookstore you walked to, but I could tell that you hadn’t gone inside. You’d gone south, and I knew you’d have to turn around soon. So I was just waiting for you, randomly searching through the thoughts of everyone I could hear— to see if anyone had noticed you so I would know where you were. I had no reason to be worried… but I started to feel strangely anxious.…” She was lost in thought now, staring past me.

“I started to drive in circles, still… listening. The sun was finally setting, and I was about to get out and follow you on foot. And then—” She stopped suddenly, her teeth clenching together with an audible snap.

“Then what?”

She refocused on my face. “I heard what she was thinking. I saw your face in her head, and I knew what she was planning to do.”

“But you got there in time.”

She inclined her head slightly. “It was very… hard—you can’t imagine how hard—for me to drive away, to just let them get away with that. It was the right thing, I know it was, but still…   very difficult.”

I tried not to picture what she would have done if I hadn’t made her drive away. I didn’t want to let my imagination run wild down that particular path.

“That’s one reason I made you go to dinner with me,” she admitted. “I could have let you go with Jessica and Angela, but I was afraid that if I wasn’t with you, I would go looking for those people.”

My hand still rested on top of hers. My fingers were starting to feel numb, but I didn’t care. She kept watching me, waiting for a reaction that wasn’t going to come.

I knew she was trying to warn me off with all this honesty, but she was wasting her effort.

She took a deep breath. “Are you going to eat anything else?” she asked.

I blinked at my food. “No, I’m good.”

“Do you want to go home now?”

I paused. “I’m ready to leave,” I qualified, overly grateful that we had the hour-long ride home together. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to her.

The waiter appeared as if he’d been called. Or watching.

“How are you do—” he started to ask.

She cut him off, slipping a bill onto the table. “We’re finished, thank you very much, that ought to cover it, no change, thanks.”

I fumbled for my wallet. “Um, let me— you didn’t even get anything—”

“My treat, Bella.” She smirked. Then she stood up, and I scrambled awkwardly to my feet.

The waiter smiled invitingly at her again. “You have a nice evening.”

Edythe didn’t look away from me as she thanked him. I couldn’t hide my pleasure.

She walked close beside me to the door, careful not to touch me. I remembered what Jessica had said about her relationship with Mike, how they were almost to the first-kiss stage. I sighed. Edythe seemed to hear me, and she glanced at me curiously. I looked at the sidewalk, grateful that she didn’t seem to be able to know what I was thinking.

As we reached the car, I scrambled past her to hold the door. It opened easily— she’d never locked it. She looked at me, amused, and slid into the driver’s seat. I was amazed yet again by how graceful she was. I probably should have been used to that by now—but I wasn’t. I had a feeling Edythe wasn’t the kind of person anyone could get used to.

Once I got inside the car, she started the engine and turned the heater on high. It had gotten very cold, and I guessed the good weather was at an end. I was warm in her scarf, though, breathing in its scent when I thought she couldn’t see.

Then, Edythe looked pointedly at my seat belt, and she didn’t look away until I put it on. I wondered for a second if she was some sort of safety-first absolutist— until I noticed that she hadn’t bothered with hers, and we were racing off into the light traffic without a hint of caution on her part.

“Now,” she said with a grim smile, “it’s your turn.”


	10. Theory

“CAN— CAN I ASK JUST ONE MORE?” I PLEADED AS EDYTHE ACCELERATED MUCH too quickly down the quiet street.

I was in no hurry to answer her question.

She shook her head. “We had a deal.”

“It’s not really a question,” I argued. “Just a clarification of something you said before.”

She rolled her eyes. “Make it quick.”

“Well…   you said you knew I hadn’t gone into the bookstore, and that I had gone south. I was just wondering how you knew that.”

She thought about it for a moment, deliberating again.

“I thought we were past all these evasions,” I said.

She gave me a sort of _you asked for it_ look. “Fine, then. I followed your scent.”

I couldn’t think of an acceptable response to that, but I filed it carefully away for future study. I stared out the window, trying to process all this.

“Your turn, Bella.”

“But you didn’t answer my other question.”

“Oh, come on.”

“I’m serious. You didn’t tell me how it works— the mind-reading thing. Can you read anybody’s mind, anywhere? How do you do it? Can the rest of your family do the same thing?”

It was easier to talk about this in the dark car. The streetlights were behind us already, and in the low gleam from the dashboard, everything we were discussing seemed just a little more possible. It seemed like she felt the same sense of non-reality, like normality was on hold for as long as we were in this space together. Her voice was casual as she answered.

“No, it’s just me. And I can’t hear anyone, anywhere. I have to be fairly close. The more familiar someone’s… ‘voice’ is, the farther away I can hear them. But still, no more than a few miles.” She paused thoughtfully. “It’s a little like being in a huge hall filled with people, everyone talking at once. It’s just a hum— a buzzing of voices in the background. Until I focus on one voice, and then what they’re thinking is clear.

“Most of the time I tune it all out— it can be very distracting. And then it’s easier to seem _normal_ ”— she frowned as she said the word—“when I’m not accidentally answering someone’s thoughts rather than their words.”

“Why do you think you can’t hear me?” I asked curiously.

She stared at me, eyes seeming to bore right through mine, with that frustrated look I knew well. I realized now that each time she’d looked at me this way, she must have been trying to hear my thoughts, and failing. Her expression relaxed as she gave up.

“I don’t know,” she murmured. “Maybe your mind doesn’t work the same way the rest of theirs do. Like your thoughts are on the AM frequency and I’m only getting FM.” She grinned at me, suddenly amused.

“My mind doesn’t work right? I’m a freak?” Her speculation hit home. I’d always suspected as much, and it embarrassed me to have it confirmed.

“I hear voices in my mind and you’re worried that _you’re_ the freak.” She laughed. “Don’t worry, it’s just a theory.…” Her face tightened. “Which brings us back to you.”

I frowned. How was I going to say this out loud?

“I thought we were past all these evasions,” she reminded me softly.

I looked away from her face, trying to gather my thoughts into words, and my eyes wandered across the dashboard…   stopped at the speedometer.

“Holy crow!” I shouted.

“What’s wrong?” She was startled. But the car didn’t decelerate.

“You’re going a hundred miles an hour!” I was still shouting.

I shot a panicked glance out the window, but it was too dark to see much. The road was only visible in the long patch of bluish brightness from the headlights. The forest along both sides of the road was like a black wall— as hard as a wall of steel if we veered off the road at this speed.

“Relax, Bella.” She rolled her eyes, still not slowing.

“Are you trying to kill us?” I demanded.

“We’re not going to crash.”

I carefully modulated my voice. “Why are we in such a hurry, Edythe?”

“I always drive like this.” She turned to flash a crooked smile at me.

“Keep your eyes on the road!”

“I’ve never been in an accident, Bella— I’ve never even gotten a ticket.” She grinned and tapped her forehead. “Built-in radar detector.”

“Hands on the wheel, Edythe!”

She sighed, and I watched with relief as the needle gradually drifted toward eighty. “Happy?”

“Almost.”

“I hate driving slow,” she muttered.

“This is slow?”

“Enough commentary on my driving,” she snapped. “I’m still waiting for you to answer my question.”

I forced my eyes away from the road in front of us, but I didn’t know where to look. It was hard to look at her face, knowing the word I was going to have to say now. My anxiety must have been obvious.

“I promise I won’t laugh this time,” she said gently.

“I’m not worried about that.”

“Then what?”

“That you’ll be…   upset. Unhappy.”

She lifted her hand off the gearshift and held it out toward me— just a few centimeters. An offer. I glanced up quickly, to make sure I understood, and her honey eyes were unexpectedly soft.

“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I can handle it.”

I took her hand, and she curled her fingers very lightly around mine for one short second, then dropped her hand back to the gearshift. Carefully, I placed my hand over the top of hers again. I ran my thumb along the outside of her hand, tracing from her wrist to the tip of her pinkie finger. Her skin was so _soft_ — not that it had any give at all, but soft like satin. Smoother, even.

“The suspense is killing me, Bella,” she whispered.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know where to start.”

Another long moment of silence, just the purr of the engine and the sound of my hitching breath. I couldn’t hear hers at all. I traced back down the side of her perfect hand.

“Why don’t you start at the beginning,” she suggested, her voice more normal now. Practical. “Is this something you thought up on your own, or did something make you think of it— a comic book, maybe, or a movie?”

“Nothing like that,” I said. “But I didn’t think of it on my own.”

She waited.

“It was Saturday— down at the beach.”

I risked a glance up at her face. She looked confused.

“I ran into an old family friend— Jules, Julie Black. Her mom and Charlie have been close since before I was born.”

She still looked confused.

“Her mom’s one of the Quileute leaders.…”

Her confused expression froze in place. It was like all the planes of her face had suddenly hardened into ice.

“We went for a walk—” I edited all my scheming out of the story “—and she was telling me some old legends—trying to scare me, I think. She told me one…” I hesitated.

I was surprised when she spoke— her face was so still, and her lips barely moved.

“What were those legends?”

I half-opened my mouth, then closed it again.

“What?”

“I don’t want to say it,” I admitted.

“It’s not my favorite word, either.” Her face had warmed up a little; she looked human again. “Not saying it doesn’t make it go away, though. Sometimes…   I think _not_ saying it makes it more powerful.”

 I wondered if she was right.

“Vampire?” I whispered.

She flinched.

No. Saying it out loud didn’t make it any less powerful.

Funny how it didn’t sound stupid anymore, like it had in my room. It didn’t feel like we were talking about impossible things, about old legends or silly horror movies or paperback books. It felt real.

And very powerful.

I was worried suddenly, worried about protecting Jules.

“She just thought it was a silly superstition,” I said quickly. “She didn’t expect me to think anything of it.” It didn’t seem like enough; I had to confess. “It was my fault, I convinced her to tell me.”

“Why?”

“Lauren said something about you—she was trying to provoke me, I think. And an older boy from the tribe said your family didn’t come to the reservation, only it sounded like he meant something different. So I got Jules alone and I tricked it out of her,” I admitted, hanging my head.

She startled me by laughing. “Tricked her how?” she asked.

“Um, well, she was…” I paused, nervous. “I tried to flirt—it worked better than I thought it would.” Disbelief colored my tone as I remembered.

“I’d like to have seen that.” She chuckled. “And you accused me of dazzling people—poor Jules Black.”

I blushed deeply and looked out my window into the night.

“What did you do then?” she asked after a minute.

“Oh— um, I did some research on the Internet.”

“And that convinced you?” She was very matter-of-fact now.

“No. Nothing fit. Most of it was kind of silly. But I just—”

I stopped abruptly. She waited, then stared at me when I didn’t finish.

“You what?” she pushed.

“Well, I mean, it doesn’t matter, right? So I just let it go.”

“It doesn’t _matter_?” Her tone made me look up—I had finally broken through her carefully composed mask. Her face was incredulous, with just a hint of anger.

“No,” I said softly. “It doesn’t matter to me what you are.”

“You don’t care if I’m a monster? If I’m not _human_?”

“No.”

She was silent, staring straight ahead again. Her face was bleak and cold. I could feel the car accelerating under me.

“You’re upset. See, I shouldn’t have said anything,” I mumbled.

She shook her head, then answered through her teeth. “No, I’d rather know what you’re thinking, even if what you’re thinking is insane.”

“Sorry.”

She blew out an exasperated sigh, and then it was quiet again for a few minutes. I ran my thumb over the back of her hand again.

“What are you thinking about now?” she asked. Her voice was calmer.

“Um… nothing, really.”

“It drives me crazy, not knowing.”

“I don’t want to…   I don’t know, offend you.”

“Spit it out, Bella.”

“I have lots of questions. But you don’t have to answer them. I’m just curious.”

“About what?”

“How old you are.”

“Seventeen.”

I stared at her for a minute, till half her mouth twitched up into a smile.

“How long have you been seventeen?” I asked.

“A while,” she admitted.

I smiled, pleased that she was still being honest with me. “Okay.”

She looked at me like I’d lost my mind.

This was better, though. Easier, with her just being herself, not worrying about keeping me in the dark. I liked being on the inside. Her world was where I wanted to be.

“Don’t laugh— but how do you come outside in the daytime?”

She laughed anyway. “Myth.”

The sound of her laughter was warm. It made me feel like I had swallowed a bunch of sunlight. My smile got bigger.

“Burned by the sun?”

“Myth.”

“Sleeping in coffins?”

“Myth.” She hesitated for a moment, and then added softly, “I can’t sleep.”

It took me a minute to absorb that. “At all?”

“Never,” she murmured. She turned to look at me with a wistful expression. I held her gaze, my eyes getting trapped in her golden stare. After a few seconds, I’d completely lost my train of thought.

Suddenly she turned away, her eyes narrowing again. “You haven’t asked me the most important question yet.”

“The most important question?” I blinked, still dazed.

“Aren’t you _curious_ about my diet?” she asked sarcastically.

“Oh,” I murmured, “that.”

“Yes, that,” she said bleakly. “Don’t you want to know if I drink blood?”

I winced. “Well, Jules said something about that.”

“Did she now?”

“She said you didn’t… hunt people. Your family wasn’t supposed to be dangerous because you only hunted animals.”

“She said we weren’t dangerous?” Her voice was deeply skeptical.

“Not exactly. Jules said you weren’t _supposed_ to be dangerous. But the Quileutes still didn’t want you on their land, just in case.”

She looked forward, but I couldn’t tell if she was watching the road or not.

“So, was she right? About not hunting people?” I tried to keep my voice as even as possible.

“The Quileutes have a long memory,” she whispered.

I took that as a confirmation.

“Don’t let that make you complacent, though,” she warned me. “They’re right to keep their distance from us. We are still dangerous.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We… try,” she explained. Her voice got heavier and slower. “We’re usually very good at what we do. Sometimes we make… mistakes. Me, for example, allowing myself to be alone with you.”

“This is… a mistake?” I heard the anxiety in my voice, but I didn’t know if she could as well.

“A very dangerous one,” she murmured.

We were both silent then. I watched the headlights twist with the curves of the road. They moved too fast; it didn’t look real, it looked like a video game. I was aware of the time slipping away so quickly, like the black road underneath us, and I was suddenly terrified that I would never have another chance to be with her like this again— openly, the walls between us gone for once. What she was saying sounded like… a goodbye. My hand trembled, still resting on hers. I couldn’t waste one minute I had with her.

“Tell me more,” I asked, just so I could hear her voice again.

She looked at me quickly, startled by the change in my tone. “What more do you want to know?”

“Tell me why you hunt animals instead of people,” I said. It was the first question I could think of. My voice sounded thick. I double-blinked the extra moisture from my eyes.

Her answer was very low. “I don’t _want_ to be a monster.”

“But animals aren’t enough?”

She paused. “I can’t be sure, but I’d compare it to living on tofu and soy milk; we call ourselves vegetarians, our little inside joke. It doesn’t completely satiate the hunger— or rather thirst. But it keeps us strong enough to resist. Most of the time.” Her tone darkened. “Sometimes it’s more difficult than others.”

“Is it very difficult for you now?” I asked.

She sighed. “Yes.”

“But you’re not hungry now,” I said— stating, not asking.

“Why do you think that?”

“Your eyes. I have a theory about that. It seems like the color is linked to your mood— and people are generally crabbier when they’re hungry, right?”

She laughed. “You are observant, aren’t you?”

I listened to the sound of her laugh, committing it to memory.

“So everything I thought I saw— that day with the van. That all really happened. You _caught_ the van.”

She shrugged. “Yes.”

“How strong are you?”

She glanced at me from the side of her eye. “Strong enough.”

“Could you lift five thousand pounds?”

She looked a little thrown by my enthusiasm. “If I needed to. But I’m not much into feats of strength. They just make Emmett competitive, and I’ll never be _that_ strong.”

“How strong?”

“Honestly, if he wanted to, I think he could lift a mountain over his head. But I would never say that around him, because then he would have to try.” She laughed, and it was a relaxed sound. Affectionate.

“Were you hunting this weekend, with, uh, Emmett?” I asked when it was quiet again.

“Yes.” She paused for a second, as if deciding whether or not to say something. “I didn’t want to leave, but it was necessary. It’s a bit easier to be around you when I’m not thirsty.”

“Why didn’t you want to leave?”

“It makes me… anxious… to be away from you.” Her eyes were gentle, but intense, and they made it hard to breathe in and out like normal. “I wasn’t joking when I asked you to try not to fall in the ocean or get run over last Thursday. I was distracted all weekend, worrying about you. And after what happened tonight, I’m surprised that you did make it through a whole weekend unscathed.” She shook her head, and then seemed to remember something. “Well, not totally unscathed.”

“What?”

“Your hands,” she reminded me. I looked down at my palms, at the almost-healed scrapes across the heels of my hands. Her eyes missed nothing.

“I fell.”

“That’s what I thought.” Her lips curved up at the corners. “I suppose, being you, it could have been much worse— and that was the possibility that tormented me the entire time I was away. It was a very long three days. I really got on Emmett’s nerves.” She smiled ruefully at me.

“Three days? Didn’t you just get back today?”

“No, we got back Sunday.”

“Then why weren’t you at school?” I was frustrated, almost angry as I thought of how much her absence had affected me.

“Well, you asked if the sun hurt me, and it doesn’t. But I can’t go out in the sunlight— at least, not where anyone can see.”

“Why?”

“I’ll show you sometime,” she promised.

I thought about it for a moment. “You could have called me.”

She was puzzled. “But I knew you were fine.”

“But _I_ didn’t know where _you_ were. I—” I hesitated, dropping my eyes.

“What?” Her velvety voice was compelling.

“It’s going to sound stupid… but, well, it makes me anxious, too. Not seeing you.” I blushed to be saying this out loud. “I was afraid you might not come back. I thought I’d done something wrong, and you would… disappear.”

She was quiet. I glanced up— she looked pained, like something was hurting her.

“Edythe, are you okay?”

“Ah,” she groaned quietly. “This is wrong.”

I had to fight back my dread at those words. “What did I say?”

“Don’t you see, Bella? It’s one thing for me to make myself miserable, but a wholly other thing for you to be so involved.” She turned her anguished eyes to the road, her words flowing almost too fast for me to understand. “I don’t want to hear that you feel that way. It’s not safe. I’m dangerous, Bella. You’ll be lucky to get out alive.”

I sighed. “I don’t care about that.”

“I’m serious,” she growled.

“So am I. I told you, it doesn’t matter to me what you are. It’s too late.”

Her voice whipped out, low and sharp. “Never say that. It’s _not_ too late. I can put things back the way they were. I _will_.”

I stared straight ahead, glad again for the scarf. My neck was a mass of crimson splotches, I was sure.

“I don’t want things back the way they were,” I mumbled.

Edythe withdrew her hand from beneath mine, just slightly, and rested it atop mine for a moment. Then she returned it slowly to the steering wheel.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice burned with real regret. I knew she wasn’t just apologizing for the words that had upset me.

The darkness slipped by us in silence. I realized the car was slowing, and even in the dark I recognized the landmarks. We were passing into the boundaries of Forks. It had taken less than twenty minutes.

“Will I see you tomorrow?”

“Do you want to?” she whispered.

“More than anything else I’ve ever wanted.” It was pathetic how obviously true the words were. So much for playing hard to get.

She closed her eyes. The car didn’t deviate so much as half an inch from the center of the lane.

“Then I’ll be there,” she finally said. “I do have a paper to turn in.”

She looked at me then, and her face was calmer, but her eyes were troubled.

We were suddenly in front of Charlie’s house. The lights were on, my truck in its place, everything utterly normal. It was like waking up from a dream— the kind you didn’t want to lose, the kind you kept your eyes closed tight for, rolled over and covered your head with a pillow for, trying to find a way back in. She shut off the engine, but I didn’t move.

“I’ll save you a seat at lunch.” Edythe smiled.

It was silly, after everything we’d been through tonight, how that little promise sent flutters through my stomach, and made me unable to speak.

I looked into her eyes and it was like she was a magnet again, like she was pulling me toward her and I had no power to resist. I didn’t want to try. The word _vampire_ was still there between us, but it was easier to ignore than I would have thought possible. Her face was so unbearably beautiful, it hurt in a strange way to look at it. At the same time, I never wanted to look away. I wanted to know if her lips were as silky smooth as the skin of her hand—

Suddenly her left hand was there, palm forward, an inch from my face, warning me back, and she was cringing against the car door, her eyes wide and frightened and her teeth clenched together.

I jerked away from her.

“Sorry!”

She stared at me for a long moment, and I would swear she wasn’t breathing. After a long moment, she relaxed a little.

“You have to be more careful than that, Bella,” she said finally in a dull voice. “Maybe—”

“I can do better,” I interrupted quickly. “Just tell me the rules, and I’ll follow them.”

She sighed. “Then promise me something.”

“Yes,” I said, and instantly regretted my unconditional agreement. What if she asked me to stay away from her? I couldn’t keep that promise.

But she smiled. “Don’t go into the woods alone again.”

I could feel the surprise on my face. “How did you know that?”

She touched the tip of her nose.

“Really? You must have an _incredible_ sense—”

“Are you going to agree to what I ask or not?” she interrupted.

I stared at her in blank confusion. “Can I ask why?”

She frowned, her eyes tight again as she stared out the window past me. “I’m not always the most dangerous thing out there. Let’s leave it at that.”

The sudden bleakness in her voice made me shiver, but I was relieved. This, at least, was an easy promise to honor. “Whatever you say.”

She sighed. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Bella.”

I knew she wanted me to leave now. I opened the door unwillingly.

“Tomorrow,” I emphasized. I started to climb out.

“Bella?”

I turned and ducked back awkwardly, and she was leaning toward me, her pale, glorious face just inches from mine. My heart stopped beating.

“Sleep well,” she said. Her breath blew into my face— it was the same compelling scent that haunted her car, but in a more concentrated form. I blinked, thoroughly dazed. She leaned away.

I was unable to move until my brain had somewhat unscrambled itself. Then I backed out of the car awkwardly, having to use the frame for balance. I thought she might have laughed, but the sound was too quiet for me to be certain.

She waited till I’d stumbled to the front door, and then her engine quietly revved. I turned to watch the silver car disappear around the corner. It was suddenly very cold.

I reached for the key mechanically and unlocked the front door.

“Bella?” Charlie called from the living room.

“Yeah, Dad, it’s me.” I locked the door and then went to find him. He was on his favorite couch, a baseball game on the TV.

“You’re home early.”

“Is it early?” It seemed like I’d been with Edythe for days… or maybe it was just a few seconds. Not long enough.

“It’s not even eight yet,” he told me. “Did you girls have fun?”

“Yeah—it was lots of fun.” My head was spinning as I tried to remember all the way back to the girls’ night out I had planned. “They both found dresses.”

“What’s that around your neck?”

I reached for the scarf I’d forgotten and tried to pull it off, but it was wrapped too many times around my neck, and I just choked myself.

“Uh— I forgot a coat— and someone lent me a scarf.”

“Are you okay? You look kind of pale.”

“Aren’t I always kind of pale?”

“Guess so.”

Actually, my head was starting to spin a little, and I was still cold, though I knew the room was warm.

I wondered if I was going to go into shock after all. _Get a grip._

“I, uh, didn’t sleep very well last night,” I said to Charlie. “I think I’ll go to bed early.”

“’Night, kid.”

I walked up the stairs slowly, a sort of stupor starting to cloud my mind. I had no reason to be so exhausted— or so cold. I brushed my teeth and splashed some hot water on my face; it made me shiver. I didn’t bother changing, just kicked off my shoes, then climbed into the bed fully dressed— the second time in a week. I wrapped my quilt tightly around me, and a few small shudders trembled through me.

My mind swirled like I was dizzy. It was full of impressions and images, some I wished I could see more clearly, and some I didn’t want to remember at all. The road whipping by too fast, the dim yellow light at the restaurant glinting in her metallic hair, the shape of her lips when she smiled… when she frowned… the headlights screaming toward me, the gun pointed at my face while cold sweat beaded on my forehead. My bed shook under me as I shivered again.

No, there were too many things I wanted to remember, wanted to cement into my head, to waste time with the unpleasant images. I pulled the scarf I was still wearing up over my nose and inhaled her scent. Almost immediately, my body relaxed, the tremors stilling. I pictured her face in my head— every angle, every expression, every mood. As I fell gradually closer to unconsciousness, a few certainties became evident.

About three things I was absolutely positive. First, Edythe was a vampire. Second, there was part of her—and I didn’t know how potent that part might be—that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with her.


End file.
